These Difficult Times

Although the MTA Transit strike has disrupted the lives of millions of people in an intimate and very real manner, the strike is also revealing from an abstract point of view.

It shows, in incredible clarity, how dependent our society has become on heavy machinery, the heavy machinery like that used by the MTA subway system. These devices have become for us one gigantic CRUTCH. This machinery moves us, carries us to work and back home again; it allows us to run businesses, allows people who live far away to travel long distances to work; it does our heavy lifting, and in general we depend upon it to do our work for us. And without this crutch, what happens?

People, in general, have become annoyed. They ask: Where is our crutch? Where is the tool that we used to have? Are we not being deprived of this crutch? Is not this crutch our right? Upon the third day of the strike, I notice that people are settling in and adapting to new ways of getting to work, but that patience is waining, and the sense of irritation is heating up like a piece of coal.

I find it profitable to skew the issues surrounding the transit strike using this crutch metaphor: the Transit Union operates and controls the crutch, and the rest of us depend upon it and have taken it for granted; and when the Transit Union takes this crutch away, we suffer and have to limp along, metaphorically speaking, without it.

There are times when the injured or handicapped must not use crutches: they must move on their own. And so must we, without complaints, without anger, without irritation.

The crutch is gone, the training wheels are taken away, the starling falls from its nest and beats its wings. Difficulties like this make us stronger, do they not?