A structure carrying a pathway or roadway over a depression or obstacle b: a time, place, or means of connection or transition. “bridge.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 6 February 2009 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bridge.
I think of this definition of a bridge; the connection and merging bridges offer. Then reading the two different articles i show here this past week in the North Shore News makes me wonder just how disconnected people have become.
One article I read was about a man who suspended himself using a harness and shoe strings from the lions gate bridge on Sunday February 1st 2009. He was carrying a pair of scissors and cut the strings attaching him to the bridge to depart this earth.
The second article was about an annual prank the UBC engineering students perform. They suspend a volkswagon beetle from a local bridge. This year’s choice of bridge was the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing. In the midst of this prank they were seen as being up to no good and a passerby phoned the police on them.
In both of these stories one theme was the plight of the commuters at the time. How these major life events both happy and sad effected the day to day of the people in car commuting. I feel the fact we even mention the commuters shows we have become too detached from the people around us, our communities, and neighbours.
We have become drones to our functioning society. We are at the point in the world where a man ends himself and we are less concerned on why he did this or what was happening in his life. Our concerns seem to be with how it affects the people driving by. The picture above is one my friend and our fellow school mate Elissa Thompson drew depicting our view on how we feel most people react to these types of situations.
What’s your opinion? Take my poll.
Nick Fulton
