I was driving through Epirus when the traffic stopped.
Deep in the mountains, a line of cars had formed along a narrow road. Nobody was moving.
It was 39 degrees Celsius outside. I waited. Everyone waited. After a while, I started wondering whether something had happened farther ahead. An accident. Roadworks. A fallen tree. Something that might keep us there for the next hour.
Then I saw Petros.
He was standing in the middle of the road.
Not crossing it. Apparently not going anywhere. Just standing there, looking at the cars that had accumulated around him.
Petros seemed unbothered by the situation.
Stranger still, so did everyone else.
Nobody honked. Nobody tried to move him. Nobody appeared particularly angry. An entire line of traffic had quietly reorganized itself around the intentions of Petros.
Petros, meanwhile, appeared to have no intentions at all.
Eventually, he moved.
Not because someone made him.
He seemed ready.
I thought about Petros for the rest of the day.
There was something enviable about his relationship with the world.
Petros wasn't trying to appear confident. He wasn't trying to be interesting. He wasn't managing anyone's impression of him. He wasn't concerned with whether the people waiting approved of where he had chosen to stand.
Petros simply was.
We spend an extraordinary amount of our lives narrating ourselves. Explaining our decisions. Anticipating reactions. Managing perceptions. Optimizing for applause.
Petros had eliminated the entire layer.
He was not indifferent to life.
He was indifferent to the audience.
There is a difference.
I wondered what would happen if, occasionally, we were too.
What if not every decision required an explanation?
What if not every silence needed filling?
What if we stopped rehearsing ourselves for people who may not be paying much attention anyway?
What if, once in a while, we simply stood where we had chosen to stand?
Perhaps nothing would happen.
Perhaps traffic would accumulate behind us.
Perhaps, eventually, we would move.
I don't know where Petros is now.
I suspect Petros doesn't care where I am either.