Trains are fun, and so are Soap Operas.

Sitting and looking out of a train window is kind of like watching a movie. On TV, significant, beautiful, and sad things all happen at an unrealistically fast pace, simply because they have a time slot to fill, and hey - things have to stay interesting. Just take any soap opera. In the span of a few short episodes people die, get married and divorced, have babies etc. etc.

In the real world things move much slower. While feelings and decisions may have a pivotal moment when things "change", these are still often the result of many actions and decisions building up over a long period of time. The funny thing about this is that, if you accept that many of our actions are the results of other actions - or even just our individual personalities - then nothing should surprise us. It should be easy to figure out who will fall in love with whom, or what the outcome of certain political events will be, but that's the thing - it never is. We are all so preoccupied with, well, everything, that we never really can focus on just one thing.

I've long felt that the answers are always right in front of us, we just don't know how to see them.

When you're on a train, things are going by fast - but not ridiculously so. You pass by a school, a soccer game, anything, and are given only a short amount of time to see and make of it what you will. But unlike soap operas, those people going on with their daily lives are under no obligation to be interesting, or special, or anything other than what they are. In this they are not crazy or unrealistic, they are simply human. So when you are riding by on a train, with the world passing in front of you, you are getting to watch the best movie ever made: the movie of life, minus all of the fuss.

I've included some photos from a recent train ride, I hope you enjoy.