And we remained silent

I have to admit, I actually like sitting on the train and looking out the window for a good bit of artful graffiti.

I wonder if there's a business in commissioning this kind of art? Would young artists be keen to be paid to splash some colour on a wall of some building somewhere?

Image source
I mean....how cool is this? I'd imagine the artist would've been paid for this?

On the other side, is it the adrenaline rush of doing it illegally that attracts them? I'd love to interview graffiti artists sometime, just to get an insight.

What I can't stand though is this:

And for the most part, this is the kind of artwork I get to look at every day as I travel the trains to my workplace. Most Melbourne commuters get to see this I would imagine.

The other night as I was travelling home a group of young people boarded the train from one of the stations in the City Loop. There were possibly about six young people in the group. They were loud, bold, brash and fearless, playing loud music through speakers attached to an iPad. They would traverse through the carriage and travel outside the carriage to smoke on occasion, sometimes finishing off their cigarette in the carriage. They talked loudly about items they had stolen and the tracks they had taken to escape police. It was as though we, the other commuters, did not exist. We were just a part of the environment. They paid no heed to the discomfort the woman sitting next to them was displaying as they pumped music through the speakers. They casually brought out spray cans and sprayed graffiti tags on the walls and doors of the train, knowing that no one would stop them or question them.

Like I said, they were fearless.

And we, the rest of the commuters, all sat and did nothing. No one challenged them. We collectively just sat there and let it all play out. We were in the majority. If we all had've banded together we could have stopped them or at least confronted them. But no one did. We all just sat in silence, knowing that if someone had've confronted the group it wouldn't have made a scrap of difference. None of us wanted to endure a torrent of abuse or worse from these young people.

I felt my inner rage boiling and simmering and I wished I could've done something as I know my father would have. Even though he is approaching seventy my father would not be able to help himself and I know he would confront the group. I love him for that. I wanted to tell them to, "Sit down, shut up and behave yourself!" as he would do, but the physical me just wanted to make myself invisible and not call any extra attention to myself. I get enough attention simply walking around so I am afraid of confrontation that will draw extra attention - and possibly abuse.

So I did what the rest of the carriage did. I shut up and did nothing and wondered when it was that adults became afraid of standing up to behaviour that needed addressing. I wondered when it was that young people became so big and self important that they no longer cared about anything - not the rights of other people, not the respect for public property, nothing. I wondered if I'd forgotten what it was like to be young. Did my friends and I have total disregard for others when out in public? Yes we could be loud and over excited but if an adult asked us to tone it down a bit we would have. I remember travelling the trains with a group of friends whilst in Sydney but it never entered our heads to deface it. What has changed?

Eventually, the young people left the train. As they approached their station the tension mounted in the group as they tried to discern where the police were stationed and planned their escape routes. I assumed they were known to police. I wondered what was going to become of those young people. Would one of them take things too far one day and come to an early end? Would they eventually grow up and become responsible and then one day be sitting in my position, feeling resentful that their taxes are used to clean up other people's mess?

After the group left, you could see the collective tension dissipate from the rest of the commuters. Perhaps we all felt relieved of the expectation we all felt that we should have been doing something and didn't. I wonder what it would have taken?

And I couldn't help but think of this: