Strangers on a Train

             Hitchcock made brilliant films from start to finish. From his work in the silent genre to more vocally expressive works later in his career he was always able to figure out what it was that frightened us. As we know, we are today afraid of the same things we were once afraid of. The underlying tones of what frightens humanity don’t change. We will always be frightened of some basic themes, these will be things that we will never get over as a species.

            Hitchcock’s history aside, I was thinking about his wonderful film, Strangers on a Train, if for no other reason than I am taking an incredibly long train ride. Philadelphia to Atlanta is no joke, and neither is the 16 hours that I’m not even half way through…. It gets me thinking though, just about strangers on a train.

            We all boarded as strangers. Nobody knew anyone with the exception that some people traveled together. Everyone sits in a seat, often paired up with someone that they have never even met, and we’re expected to be just fine with the whole thing. Close quarters with people that we have no idea about whatsoever. Then again, the real strangers may not be those people around us, but the people in our seats. The people that packed out bags, put on our clothes, and go through life in our bodies.

            How many of us really know ourselves? Some people never find themselves presented with this problem and assume that they know themselves just fine. I firmly believe that if you never examine yourself for who you are and who you want to be you cannot truly be a complete person.

            When do we stop being strangers to ourselves? We aren’t born knowing ourselves at all, we grow into an understanding of who we are in terms of what we like or dislike, how we look, where we belong… Then we grow into adults with preferences of what we want to be rather than what we are, We again become strangers to ourselves in that we know what we want to be and can’t quite make it happen yet. Our ideal is incongruent with our current selves and we are uncomfortable with it. We struggle to make the two the same, by changing ourselves or the ideal that we’ve developed. If we can’t do that we remain strangers to ourselves.

            There are a million different ways to find yourself as a stranger. We come into this world in this condition, we grow into it again later, and most likely many times after that. If at any point you look at your situation and wonder how you got there, or who acts like this, you’ve probably developed into just another stranger on a train.