“I’m not surprised anymore by anything,” the woman sitting nearby said to her companion. I wasn’t closely following their conversation – this was the single stand-alone sentence that came to my ears over the drone of a song by the Carpenters (‘Close To You’).
Cafe culture is sometimes just a snippet of conversation that floats above the general noise and din, asserting itself as wisdom and truth and the declarative genius of the universe wishing you to hear those words in that moment. You can bring your own reading and baggage to it, or choose to ignore it entirely, assuming you’ve even accurately heard what was said.
Nobody really listens to anything anymore. That’s my dismal spin on the original quote I thought I heard – perhaps a more cynical take and view, but at least there’s some passion behind it. Anything is better than apathy. Apathy kills all. And to lack the ability to be surprised by anything speaks to a deadness of the soul I hope to never approach.
This is cafe culture.
