Brief Moment Of Self-Awareness Triggers Musings On Existence, Language

You know how when you run into someone on the street who you haven’t seen for years and you are asking them questions about their life and what they’re up to now and how people you associate with them that you have lost touch with are doing, you are really secretly checking that person out and looking for all the signs of aging that time has done to his or her body and face, and then you suddenly realize that he or she is doing the exact same thing to you? There ought to be a word for that, that moment of shocking awareness that you are just as much the flashback cameo in someone else’s day that up until seconds ago they have been in yours. It’s such a strange thing, consciousness. Soon enough we will die, but until then it’s all worrying about the weather and trying to find a polite way to excuse yourself from boring conversations at cocktail parties.