Sit Here, and The Universe as you know it ends

In order to write this blog, you should be aware of the duress it took to convince my hand to release the exothermically pleasing cup of coffee that is providing the same effect as a micro-kotatsu (It would take me far too long to explain kotatsu. Please visit the following for more detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotatsu). My extremities have been taking a beating lo these few weeks, and more is yet to come. But for now, I suppose that they can endure the cold in the name of relating yet another Japanese life-experience to the interested, the polite, and the just plain bored.
Musing on my ride in this morning, I've decided to compose a quick blurb on my train's social conventions. Now, I can't speak as to whether or not this happens on the commuter trains back home, but I know that it doesn't happen on the subway or the bus.

So every morning, the lot of us pile on the same 7:31 train on track 4. I use the lot of us in the sense that it's the same people: The same students heading to the same school, and the same adults heading to the same jobs. The cool thing about it is the regimentation of it all. There are three cars to the train, and everyone always rides in the same car. The people who took car three yesterday are taking car three today as will take car three tomorrow. And more to it, they sit/stand in the same spot day after day. I can close my eyes right now and describe just who's sitting in what box of four at any point in my car. This applies to sitting more so than standing because in the mad rush to make the door in the last minute or two, people will just cram on. That being said, in one arrangement or another, the people who were standing yesterday are standing today as will be standing tomorrow. The regularity of it is such that if someone is missing, or is not sitting where they should be, you can actually notice it. This is a thing to say considering that I've only been riding this train three months and do not spend each morning actively memorizing the order.

It ends not here. When we arrive at the stations, you know just which people are getting off, and just which ones will be getting on. More to it, the people waiting at the stations know just where to stand so that as the train pulls up the door will be right in front of them. You don't just arrive at the station and wait for the train - you wait at your spot. And as getting on and off goes, occasionally seats will open up here and there, but unless you sit there matter of course, don't even think about it. Vacant places will remain so until arrival at the appropriate station, at which time the appropriate body will occupy it.

The whole commute is a thing of beauty, actually. One cannot help but marvel at the sublime simplicity and order of it all. What's odder still is that this does not repeat in the evening - most likely on account of everyone coming home at different times. You'll notice the same people getting on at certain stops, but we all sit very much where we please.

All said and told, today something out of the ordinary happened. In all sense and purpose, it was nothing - An occasional passenger, someone I do not usually see, happened to sit in one of the box seats that opened up. Now, while there is certainly nothing wrong in the least with sitting in a paid-for seat, this seemingly innocuous act set off a chain reaction that was detectable only by those trained to see it. By sitting in the seat, a group of boys who usually sit there was forced to occupy another seat/stand up. This forced two other girls who normally occupy the seat taken by the boys to sit next to me. This in turn caused a group of boys who usually take the seats beside me to stand, and the added standing contributed to further standing congestion that made the train – to me, at least – noticeably seem fuller than any other given day. It was just one of those moments when you kind of feel a spark hit you as though something is not right in The Universe; like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. I found it remarkable because it just goes to show that I've been here thus long that something as the seating of a train would cause me to go, "???"

This blog should be testament to the morning train commute. Such that I would devote an entire entry and several minutes of my life towards a relatively minor and circumscript affair is testament to how profound such a minor perturbation can leave such a resonance later on in the day.

That, or my mind was just so idle that it created a mountain out of a molehill.

NOTE: The actual positioning varies +/- 1 meter, 19 times out of 20.