By Abe Villarreal
Every chance I get, I walk over to the city park, right in the middle of town, just to sit. Sometimes I take my shoes off to feel the grass in between my toes. A few minutes turns into an hour, and before I know it, I spent part of an afternoon just sitting, listening, and watching.
What I see and hear are the kinds of things that you read about in books of poems written by great authors. The kinds of things that people used to focus on before social media and the invention of small computers that fit in your pocket.
From time to time, someone comes and sits nearby. It's usually someone older who looks like he has experienced life for a lot longer than I have. I love it when this happens because these become the times that I learn the most about life.
When I'm at work, I also have to sit, listen, and watch. People tell me what to do and I tell people what to do. Some of us wear ties, others professional-looking blouses and dress shirts. As the days and weeks go by, I am reminded that my generation is different from the people that come and sit by me at the park.
We have busy lives. When we talk, we are usually walking away from each other. Sometimes as we engage in conversation we are at the same time looking down at our phones. By the end of the week, we said things to each other, exchanged pleasantries, maybe shared a few laughs, but mostly, we don't know each other any better.
Those strangers that I meet at the park, I think I know a little better. Just this past weekend, I was in Mexico at the town plaza eating a torta I ordered from a food truck. Under a tree, I had a table all to myself when a man asked if he could sit by me. He also ordered a torta and so we sat and ate.
He commented on the weather. The day was hot and sitting at the table under the shade felt like heaven. It was obvious that the man was a laborer who had been working all morning. His clothes showed that, and so did his skin which had that burnt color one gets from days out in the sun.
We chatted about how good the food tasted. Anything you order from the plaza food trucks is good.
People who are experiencing life, doing honest work just to get by, have nothing to hide. They share openly and honestly because they live their life openly and honestly.
They don't care about politics, because the life they live does not afford them to care about it. When we talk about politics, we share how jaded we have become about people and society. We complain about the lack of trust we have in each other and how disappointed we are in being let down by others.
That man at the torta stand is a lot wiser than we are with our college degrees and on-the-job experiences. He knows who to trust and who not to trust. He reads people better than we do. He looks people in the eyes and can figure out how to handle life's curveballs in a way much better than the advice I've read in books, in textbooks written for aspiring leaders.
As we talked and ate, he reminded me that the best wisdom in life is learned by listening and not talking. By watching, not directing. Grandmas and grandpas know this because they had a lot less than we do and yet, they lived lives with a kind of fulfillment we desire and claim not to have.
So, the next time you sit at the park, or at a plaza for lunch, welcome that stranger who knows a lot more about life than you could ever imagine.
He has something to say even if he doesn't say much at all.
Abe Villarreal writes about the traditions, people, and culture of America. He can be reached at abevillarreal@hotmail.com.