These days, we use the word “available” to refer primarily to digital availability, i.e., how quickly a person replies to texts or emails. Is there someone you could text right now and be sure of an immediate reply? This type of person is often less available in real life, because they’re so dedicated to maintaining their digital life.
In public spaces, availability is rare. Almost no one is attuned to their surroundings or open to conversation, receptive to subtle social and environmental cues. I was riding an airport bus recently when I realized I didn’t know which terminal to get off at.
In a panic, I turned to the man next to me, who happened to be wearing an airport uniform. I began to speak before noticing that he was wearing noise-canceling earbuds and watching a basketball game on his phone. Sure, I could have tapped him on the shoulder, but my time was limited—and hadn’t he made it clear he didn’t want to interact with me?
Availability makes you a public resource, someone to ask for advice and directions, someone to commiserate with when the weather is bad or the flight is delayed, someone to keep an eye on someone’s luggage or dog while they run to the bathroom. Even if an available person is never called upon to help, their latent availability nonetheless improves the atmosphere for everyone present. It is far more pleasant to share a space with someone who, however subtly, acknowledges that you exist.
The unavailability of others is so disturbing, so disabling that our only defense is to become unavailable ourselves. Those times when you are called upon to assist a stranger, you’ll feel a surge of pride. You made a difference in someone’s day, reinforcing their faith in the goodness of strangers.
The more we talk to each other, the less we have to fear. In spaces of universal digital absorption, we don’t talk to each other at all. There is no spontaneity, just stasis.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
