The Eyes of the Crowd

What exactly am i talking about?? what are the eyes of a crowd?? I’m going to ellaborate on both the literal eyes and psychological eyes of the crowd.

Let us first think upon the literal aspect of the eyes of the crowd. Have you walked out of a comparatively  emptier  area into a more crowded region to find a crowd there. Perhaps you may  have swept the crowd once casually. If you have done so ,as was the case many a time with me, you probably met eyes with a couple of people in the crowd. it could be just a casual meeting of the eyes where it happened by chance and for a the briefest period or it could be the more interesting occurence.

The other possibility is that you met eyes with some people and you  find that they do not look away. they just keep on staring. If you look away once and look again  they’re still staring. The question i ask is why??? i have taken the opinion of many people and find this true for others as well though the number of “starers” differs. 

Staring is quite rude actually, but for some reason these people forget this breach of etiquette and keep it going. One thing these people have to learn, if you’re going to stare be discreet. That should be their golden rule.

Now, take you’re in a foul mood and you come upon another starer, wouldn’t it just be so unnerving  and irritating to see the pair of eyes fixed upon you. This happened to me one day, when i was in quite a bad mood( bad day- my girlfriend dumped me) when this girl was staring. In my head i am like – Oh my god, now of all times. So i decide to stare back…with interest. I stare back at her for a complete  2 minutes with a naughty look in my eye. And after like 2 minutes or so of visual concentration she suddenly realizes  that shes been caught staring. She gets up looks back to me once more and walks off.  SCORE- that was almost the desired result i wanted. I was hoping she’d give some weird face expression(like she was constipated) and act as if i was some retarded idiot, but that’s just me.

Since we’re brooding over the topic of staring , every watched other people stare at each other. i get the best seats in the house for watching. Every morning, before classes begin, we have a sort of assembly or gathering where the head of the institution says a prayer and then starts rambling on about some disciplinary issue or how he’s unhappy with this  or that blah blah blah( we think he does this everyday because of lack of some sexual happiness-he’s a 40 year old bachelor). Anyway during this time,  there’s this guy and a girl who are going out(cute couple) and they keep staring at each other throughout the assembly. Every 1 minute or so, they’ll look away so as to not let anyone know what they’re doing but i am smarter. I am almost right in the middle of their line of vision and occasionally for fun i take a step forward or backward and then would see them crane their necks to see each other. Fun.

Now Lets look at the other aspect of the eyes of the crowd. This relates to the impact of the crowd on our mind at times dictating our actions. It is believed that those who are weak of mind and body are easily swayed by the crowd. I actually oppose this statement. I can  support my claim with the case of my friend.

My friend is an individual who is has her own identity. She does her own thing and in most cases handles pressure well. One of the few things which causes her to “crack” is peer pressure. I was sure of this when she was being asked out by a boy who asked her out for the 3rd time. She had rejected him twice and gone out with him once but it ended badly. The crowd played the decisive role here because when the boy came to ask out my friend, there was a crowd surrounding them and this crowd unfortunately for my friend was in wait of a “yes” to the boy question to the girl. Sadly my friend conceded under the pressure and said yes.

They broke up 2 weeks later.

This is a good example of how the crowd can cloud our judgement. Sadly i am no neurologist or doctor of related arts and cannot say what exactly happens  inside our craniums during this situation.

 Alot of people are affected by peer pressure as well. Through their mind go through the questions- what will he think, what will every one else be doing/wearing/thinking/writing/eating?. This is a common thought for those who are usually not in the most social circles of our school, class, section etc. Each place has it own social circle. Take the example of a school, there are the people who everyone knows either because they’re good looking, smart, popular, funny. sporty etc. And even as you go down each class you’ll find there are some people who  are apparently above the rest. aka the social ladder is found even on the smallest level.

And it is usually the people who are either in the middle of the social ladder are most affected by the peer pressure. The people at the bottom are those who are usually so out of the loop most people have difficulty remembering their names.

There are also some people who are so stubborn upon doing their own thing, not caring about what other think, not affected by peer pressure that it has a negative impact on their position on the social ladder.

My friend Nathan is an apt example of this. He is not affected by anything, never follows the crowd, never does any thing because some one else is doing it. The result- He gets picked on everyday.

What  i am trying to say is peer pressure is good till a certain point. The point after which it starts clouding your judgement is when peer pressure becomes a bad guy.

When people get immersed in a culture with strong new memes, it tends to be a sink-or-swim proposition. Either you change your mind, succumbing to peer pressure and adopting the new memes as your own, or you struggle with the extremely uncomfortable feeling of being surrounded by people who think you’re crazy or inadequate. The fact that you probably think the same about them is little consolation.

RICHARD BRODIE,