Today I was browsing the Dymocks bookstore in Sydney’s CBD before a stranger had noticed I’d been carrying The Road & Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy in my hand.
“McCarthy huh, straight in the deep end with those books” expressed a voice over my shoulder before meeting a man named James. He’d been about the same height as me and I could tell he’d come from some corporate job in the city from his attire. His scruffy beard, wild hair and the fact he’d been sitting alone in a bookstore had told me he was also a deep thinker.
It didn’t take long until this stranger begun recommending book after book in the fantasy and sci-fi section. I could tell he instantly felt safe to open up and tell me about all his favourite stories and why the Americanisation in Game of Thrones sucked compared to the Polish humour in The Witcher.
In almost a fraction of a second did these books inform this man that there’d been this common ground between the two of us. The mere symbol of a Cormac McCarthy book had become this bridge between two strangers.
The immense power of symbols allows them to convey large amounts of context almost instantly. Symbols are like little hints hidden away in the Game of Life that nudge you to go interact with someone.
Although I’ll most likely never see James again there’s an immense beauty to the fleetingness of this short interaction. Without him it would’ve been another day browsing the book alone.
So next time you see something you recognise in someone’s hand, on someone’s body or even something that someone is looking at, say something — you never know what the conversation or connection could lead to.