What’s On Your Mind?

Over the holidays, I was stranded by my wife in a Starbucks inside a large grocery store in Jackson, Wyoming. I ran out of reading material and had to scramble for some diversion. A stream of normal people flowed by—some perhaps toying with the idea of a coffee—and I got to wondering what was going on behind their faces.

I started with a middle-aged woman, interrupting her quiet contemplation of a cappuccino.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked

She gave me a strange look.

“The temperature.”

At that moment it was about −8 °F, warmer than the previous two days. (The average that week was −7 °F.)

I didn’t believe she was just sitting there thinking about the weather, so I asked another question.

“Besides the weather, what bothers you most today?”

“What’s the matter with you,” she said. “Why do you care?”

I said that I was a disguised pollster, and explained that my company wanted to know what people in various parts of the country really think about.

She thought for a moment and then replied. “What would you think if I said it was none of your business?”

“That’s fine,” I said, “you are not the only person in the store for me to talk to.”

“Well in that case I will tell you,” she said. “The whole damn world is fucked up! I don’t know what to do other than to put my head in the sand the way camels do when waiting for a sandstorm to stop.”

“Well, if everybody did that,” I replied, “what chance is there that, whatever the problems are, they will ever get addressed, much less solved?”

“People like me are powerless to have any effect,” she said. “It is a waste of my time and adds to my aggravation.” She thought a moment before continuing.

“I told a telephone pollster that I liked Trump when I have no intention of voting for him. I hoped that saying something like that would send a message for change.”

I considered her response carefully.

“Are you aware that you may be contributing to the possibility that something you don’t want will come to pass?”