>chances are that your subconscious is telling you to leave them the hell alone
The funny thing is, what is really happening is that it is hard to differentiate between reality (where there is no real evidence that strangers want to be comforted by us, and 9/10 times if you say "are you ok" and they will sniff and say "yes" then go on crying) and the feel-good stories we read about where a brave soul breaks through stifling conventions to reach out to another human being in need.
Which is ironic given that the author is complaining about how technology stops us connecting from one another, while the original technology that started this trend was the written word:
>So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men—men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalized man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. But enough; I don't want to write more from "Underground."
In most cases, crying or bleeding strangers will use a handkerchief I give them. Bottles of water are also a hit with bleeding or sick people. It also gives them a chance to talk to me if they want. Sometimes they do, most of the time they don't, that's ok.
(I wanted to cite your post, but the relevant part is too long. HN could use citation boxes, I guess.)
I wouldn't be so cynical, but I agree with
>chances are that your subconscious is telling you to leave them the hell alone
The funny thing is, what is really happening is that it is hard to differentiate between reality (where there is no real evidence that strangers want to be comforted by us, and 9/10 times if you say "are you ok" and they will sniff and say "yes" then go on crying) and the feel-good stories we read about where a brave soul breaks through stifling conventions to reach out to another human being in need.
Which is ironic given that the author is complaining about how technology stops us connecting from one another, while the original technology that started this trend was the written word:
>So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men—men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalized man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. But enough; I don't want to write more from "Underground."