It is quite amusing for me walking around downtown Toronto and noticing how people interact using their body language, or rather, how they do not interact. One can almost observe it with amusement, like a Discovery channel show given the limited grunting, coughing, sneezing, and the general impersonal style that Toronto's population is curated by the mental health pundits whom judge what behaviour is not permitted on our "public" streets. I placed it in brackets as obviously there's no such thing as a public land or property in Toronto. Sure the legal system states it belongs to all the tax payers and citizens alike, but we all know that the more money or power an entity has the more it belongs to them. While one might casually want to play ball at Yonge and Dundas' open flat concrete plateau, it is private property and security can remove anyone for any reason, even if they merely dislike your soccer jersey being of a German team, if they were so inclined. It looks like public property, but it is also prime real estate being on the corner opposite of theater and a shopping mall, Eaton's Center, so whomever owns it is technically being nice to the whole city by choosing not to build a condominium. And as much as we might be angry that it's not a park, a basketball court, or a pool, we should also be thankful that it's not yet another walls and glass tower. I think Toronto has a plenty of these monstrosities. But the permissable behaviour and the non-punishable styles allowed by those in power for us citizens to enjoy are somewhat, well, stunning.
I played a little game once, and called it The Smiling Cookie game. You might recall the Pillsbury cookies with a smile. You bake them, and they're happy glowing little things. Unfortunately it's a cannibalistic thing - for you to share in their happyness, you kinda, sorta, have to put your teeth on them and take a bite out of their smiling face. Only then does one smile after feeling the flavour. Canibalism at its finest I suppose, but also quite neat to see them baked. Similarly, I counted the quantity of people walking around downtown core who were glowing and happy and were not behaving oddly. Odd I defined by bumping into walls, rolling on the ground, or other silly things. And after over an hour of walking around, I counted at most a dozen people from the thousands that passed me during rush hour, and half were children. To me this is a serious mental health problem and it seems this scenario may be reproduced in many other cities or even in Toronto by anyone whom chooses to play the cookie game. Maybe this is why our government wishes to legalize weed? Maybe then businessmen will smile and so will your average pedestrian? I am uncertain, for I never come near the stuff, but I also always have a smile due to Tony Robins' instillment of the belief within me that I am a giant. Don't ask, but I do see myself as a giant and it's a thought that makes me laugh every time I think of it - even now as I write this I am smiling. But not the kind of giant whom crushes others, obviously, as that thought would make me miserable. Hey, maybe Toronto's un-smiling people have that ego problem? I never thought of that, but this post isn't about that.
Interpreting their body language is entirely another tale. Many have crossed arms to boot. Others walk stiffly as if they don't even stretch for half an hour every morning. Further still many walk as if they are elderly with cosmetic surgery to make them look young, as if a bit of bounce in their step would be way too much energy in the morning or evening. Maybe because I do not sit in air conditioned office cubicles I do not grasp what force is sucking the life out of all of you, but whatever it is, none of you walked nor behaved that way when you were younger. And being an adult should mean greater happiness than when you were a child - not the embodiment of zombie-like behaviours. How the psychiatric and psychological and psychotherapeutic industries are allowed to receive even one dollar while the rest of you walk this way to and from work, is not really something I am pleased with. But it's such a sad situation that after playing the cookie game for a few weeks, I stopped counting as the score was always that low. Street buskers try their best, but people generally smile in passing and then return to their stoic poses and mannerisms. In fact, one can calculate the precise milliseconds before and after a busker pass, but that's not really interesting as it's obvious and simple to figure out without even a stop watch - at least for us musicians.
As I play a lot of video games and watch a lot of action movies, just like the rest of you, I am familiar with a simple concept of warfare. One can not talk in plain sight during combat. If you are engaged with an enemy, you can not tell your friend "I am out of ammo, please kindly go and grab me another magazine so I can load it into my weapon and kill this differently opinionated scumbag". You cannot. Or you die. During conflict, secrets are important. This is obvious and I am only repeating common sense but there is a point if you'll bare with me. In the film "I, Robot" what gesture does the robot make when interrogated to earn the trust of the cop? He winks, or is that it winks? In the film Fifth Element, how does Corbin get another gun during the hotel fight when he runs out of ammo near the pool table? He actually yells for it and asks "Pass me the gun!", but this is a sort of a secret, too, as the enemy can not hear his request, so it is technically a secret. Yet another instance is the film Speed when Wildcat uses a decoy strategy by pretending gum is bothering her on her bus seat to move away from a sort of a menace passenger. As she did not divulge the real reason and got herself out of a conflict, a social one albeit, it is sort of a secret, too, as the enemy, the other passenger, did not have a clue what the real reason was for her changing seats. Though very different reasons, the whole point is all of them are indicating that when in trouble we all do not give away our reasons to those whom are mean, abusive, or a threat to us. And we hope our intellect is greater than that of the bully, enemy, or terrorist, so that we may get to safety. This is all common sense but here is how it relates to body language, which is the entire point of this.
When it comes to dating, many people use body language to indicate what they want, with whom, and even where. Some use it as a sexual gesture, some as a romantic one, and others as decoys and so forth. Without going into details we all know what these are except some of us whom might be blind, such as me. Although not fully blind, these are gestures those with visual problems, of any sort, will have problems interpreting. This is obvious to anyone with any amount of intellect. But what isn't obvious even to most Ph.D.s is how it relates to warfare. You see, if you have to always resort to almost secretive body language gestures to initiate an encounter, or start a friendship, if you have to be that "cool" and that "secretive" then you are either paranoid, or you perceive the environment as a troublesome war-like world where you do not feel comfortable in communicating in the open using simple human-friendly language. If you do not even dare approach another person and say "Hello", but you have to flick your hair or lick your lips a kilometer away, that may be your style if you wish to call it that, but there is a reason why language exists. It's not for academic pursuits. It's not for swearing. And it's not for abusing others with. It's to make life livable. Nobody is psychic, and apart from tech industry's implants communicating with radio waves there is only one way to be clear about whom wants what, in business, and in love, and that is to use a mutually agreed upon dictionary and grammar and words. Some people will say that if a person can not communicate with body language they aren't worthy, they are of lower intelligence, but it's quite the opposite. These are opposite decoy statements. Body language is open to interpretation and is a sign of fear, paranoia, and secrets. It is not a part of an open and kind culture. It has its place, but if you rely on it exclusively for establishing friendships I'd suggest you sit and think deeply about things and think what causes you to be frightened of uttering the word "Hello" to others. Some may be introverts, others extroverts, but basic human interaction starts with a greeting of some sort, maybe a smile, but definitely not a punch. My advice might be in stark contrast to much of the advice out there, but look around you and ask is the world beautiful and are most of its creatures happy and then put the real value on all that advice you think is better than mine. The culture I'm from, people walk freely and chit-chat amongst themselves. They do not live in a building with a hundred other families where nobody knows even the other's dog names. While I do not want to sing koombaya ever in my life nor sit in a prayer circle and hold hands, that's obviously somebody's marketing dream for selling guru books, I do think Toronto needs a lot of help and it's not going to come from any of the three aforementioned professions. They had their time for decades and did little good to any of us. If you still are not convinced think of the Blue Jays. Why does the catcher not yell out in plain English "fastball"? I think it's because of paranoia and fear that the Red Sox will know how to hit a home run easier. But I could be wrong, for I don't follow baseball, and maybe Red Sox aren't even a baseball team.
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