Interesting people - My seat neighbor on the plane

In the past couple of days I have had so many interesting conversations. Actually, I keep finding myself semi-interviewing people. I am asking them questions out of genuine interest and curiosity and they are enjoying the questions and happily talking.

On the plane ride back to Vancouver this week I sat next to an older man. At first I was taken aback by him. He was so old in body. It literally depressed me. In my world, everything has to do with the bigger picture of life. When I see this old man, it depresses me about life and the way God created it, us and the world.

But then I was watching him do crossword puzzles and I decided to make conversation. I wanted to remove the symbolism he possesed in my head and see who he was as an individual.

Turns out he is a retired mathematics professor. And he only does crossword puzzles when travelling in order to pass the time. And he's from Columbia.

I never got his name, nor did he get mine. But we talked a lot of the way, mostly about him. About what he does now that he's retired. He is very busy doing his own research. And he exercises and it sounds like he spends time with friends. He was on his way back from Toronto after going there to look at some art his friend is selling.

He is very cultured. Literature, art. In Columbia books were their main source of entertainment and there was a lot of it. He told me about these books or magazines his father got for one of his siblings' birthdays one year. Each one had different sections talking about different aspects of the world. The body, the universe, geography, etc. It was called something like, "For the inquisitive young mind." He remembers them so fondly.

There is a list of books that the Church says you cannot read. His father, being Catholic, would not have those books in the house except that since he was a very devout Christian, he got permission to bring a couple of these books into the house because he needed them for writing he did. But of course the children were not allowed to read them.

My seat neighbor said that what convinced him that this list, and I guess other things in the Church are bogus, is the fact that this list contained some of the best literature in the world.

He has been in Vancouver for around 50 years. When he moved here, it was very Protestant. But he was very bothered by the hypocrisy he experienced. For example, places were not allowed to be open on Sunday except three places. One place had French entertainment that was "free" except they requested a donation of something like 75 cents. And he said that it was known that you were expected to pay it.

There were also concerts but you had to pay ahead of time. You could not buy a ticket on Sunday.

He was ready to leave Vancouver when he started witnessing changes in these things and so, in the end, he stayed.

To me it's amazing that today the city is almost the antithesis of what it was. There are almost no rules. The way people are living is so drastically different than 50 years ago.

It sounds like for thousands and thousands of years, generation after generation lived similarly to each other. And now, in the past one to two hundred years things have changed in an almost unfathomable way.

He hates that he's getting old but he's still "playing hard". That is an impressive thing.

QE