Saying No

The speaker recounts a recent experience at a large supermarket. They were leaving the store but encountered an employee blocking their path. The employee insisted they go around another way, but the speaker refused and walked out. They reflect on the power of saying no and the feeling of not conforming to societal expectations. The speaker also discusses their dislike for large supermarkets and their preference for their usual shop. They mention that they often enter stores without buying anything and question the store's policy of making customers go a longer way to exit. The speaker feels that they are challenging the system without needing it to change. They mention their tendency to go against societal norms and their belief that people are inherently good. They also talk about their isolation from current events and their disregard for surveillance cameras. The speaker concludes by asserting their right to live life on their own terms. So I'm about to leave one of the large supermarkets. I'd been in there for a bit, looked around to see if there was something I would buy, considered a few things but decided I didn't want anything. I made my way back to where I came in which has an automatic gate that opens inwards but it doesn't open outwards. So I waited for a moment for a customer to come in so that I would walk out. The gates opened but instead of it being a customer it was a member of staff and she was already sort of using her body to stop me from leaving. Sorry love, you can't come this way, you've got to go around the other way. I just said no and I walked out the shop. It wouldn't have occurred to me to walk 30 yards that way and then 30 yards back again to reach the same place where I was just because they had decided that was what I should do. Now I'm sure she didn't expect me to just say no and I had no intention of engaging with her, it wasn't a debate. If I was in a sarcastic mode and I wanted to speak, which I didn't, but I could say well I can go out this way, look, look I'm actually doing it, see, I'm walking this way, out, bye. I just actually felt her idea, her thought, the rule, whatever it is, had no bearing on my world, meant nothing to me. I just was leaving the store and this was the most convenient way to do it. It shouldn't have been a problem. Now my walking out, did it cause the world to collapse? Did the SAS turn up and arrest me for a breach of rules? No. But as I'm walking back I actually observe the experience of myself. I thought hmm, that was quite a powerful no I produced there. Just I'm not doing that. I'm not following your idea of how I should be. I'm not affecting anybody by leaving and I'm sure some people do this from time to time, it's no big deal. Make it easier for a customer to decide to leave as easily as possible. Maybe not attempt to make them go a whole way round because you've been told that that's what you're supposed to do. I've been feeling strange anyway in this. I never go to these big supermarkets at the other end of town. I don't like the way I feel when I'm in there. I have been a couple of times but I think this was the last occurrence of thinking that I'll look just because they have things I don't normally get to choose from here where I am, where I go. I only go to the one shop and I like the way it feels in there and I have my routines and my habits and rhythms as to what time works best for me. So I don't venture out even though there are other choices and sometimes I just want to experience something different. But the experience is always disappointing. What they are offering for the price that they're offering seems unreasonable and the quality isn't good enough but people have come to accept because that's where they buy things from and it's very fussy in that area. But this feeling of no, I'm not going to do that, I'm just leaving, it felt quite powerful. It was a quality no. It wasn't an asking no or I don't see why I should have to do that, well I'm right here, the door's right there, I'm just going, why can't, I don't have to get her permission, I'm not looking for her approval. I just go. Anyway, I realised that it was perfectly fine for me to leave that way but because my feeling, my world is in contrast to her feeling, her world, the way they do it, any attempt to merge, to impose, to explain would only have created a kind of conflict and actually it would have resulted in me either getting angry, which I don't, or resistant, which I don't like or complying, which I often do, just to keep the peace. Just so that I don't, I don't have to rock the boat for the sake of it. It wasn't my intention to do that, had anybody else come in I would have just walked out. I do that, I often do that in the shop I do go to. But it happened to be a staff member which allowed me to instantly feel I don't like someone telling me what to do when there is no real reason for it. You know, if there was, the floor was unsafe due to structural collapse and going out there could have been dangerous, to ignore it would have been foolish on my part, would have been arrogant. No, I'm going that way, I don't care, and as I walk out I fall through the floor. When you learn arrogance doesn't necessarily result in something positive. I didn't feel arrogant, I just felt like your idea has no place in my reality at this moment. Your thought, your way isn't mine. It highlighted why I don't like being in this area, these places, around these people, I don't like it. It's not that I feel like I'm better than they are, and when I interact with people as I do from time to time randomly or whatever, I feel an empathy, a compassion, I like people, I see the good in them, I enjoy the connection, the moment, the banter, if there is some. People are good, basically good, trying to be good, very rare to come across bad, very very rare, I don't come across it. People are good, they might be struggling, they might be suffering, they might have issues, but underneath that there's goodness and I feel it. And usually I'm open to allowing, helping, advising, guiding, whatever might be needed, I'm not closed, I'm not keep away from me, you don't want to mess with me, I'm not like that. But in that moment, that no, was sort of like that. Now as I walked out I sort of was aware, I actually had earplugs in which probably helped as well. I don't usually wear earplugs here where I am, the van, in the area, I haven't worn earplugs during the day for ages, I don't feel the need to like I did when I was in London. But I knew that as I'm going to this area there's a lot of traffic, busy road, I put them in and having them in often gives me a sense of isolation, well it gives me a sense of isolation which actually helps me stay detached from an environment that I'm not really comfortable to be in, I don't really want to be in, but I've accepted I will be in temporarily and go quickly. I almost didn't see her, I wasn't looking for permissions, I wasn't looking to see if it was alright for me to do it, I just was there to do it, to leave as the gates opened internally, there are only little tiny metal structures that are just almost pointless really, they never used to be there. A few years ago, last time I was living here, you would just walk in, there would just be an open area and you could walk out. There's an indoor and there's an outdoor section, but they're not separated and technically you can go in and out of either one but again the outer doors only open one way so no point in waiting for them, but that's how it used to be. Now suddenly they've decided to include this thing to ensure that you have to go out the other way, they want to keep you in the store as long as possible, they want you to pass by, possibly be tempted into something that's calling at you. I don't want to experience that, I don't appreciate being manipulated like that. Alright, this time I didn't buy anything, perhaps it's quite rare for people to walk into the store, it's a big store, they've come there where they've parked, it's a big car park, and get nothing. You always get something, even if you don't get everything, but you'll get something. I had nothing and it's not the first time I've done things like that, I can walk in and walk out with nothing, I just don't see anything I want, I'm just looking, I'm perusing, just like any other shop. But I should imagine it's fairly rare, so they don't expect anyone to do that, so there's no reason to walk out there. Perhaps it's part of their fear of shoplifting, if you make it too easy for people to leave then someone might just pop in, grab something and walk out, and perhaps that's happened, and so they've decided that they now must inconvenience all the other law-abiding, rule-following shoppers, just because. So I'm challenging the system, without actually needing it to change, I don't need it to change, you can keep that system going constantly, I'm not coming back, it's not a place I like to be, so I'm not coming back again, so you won't have to deal with me walking out that way. But it was an interesting experience. Because if I do something that is arrogant, or is a bit egotistical, or is a bit selfish, but I think I can, and I feel like I can, after I do it, I feel a sense of, I suppose it's a conscience, that says to me, hmm, maybe not. That was very ego, that was very arrogant, that was a bit self-indulgent. Alright, you did it, you could do it, but how does it make you feel? No, I don't like this. Well that's telling you that you don't need to do it like that. So I looked to see if I was having that feeling as I left, and I wasn't. I wasn't pure confidence, but it was a very confident thing to do, no, and keep walking. Not turn and look, not listen, and even if I don't think she did, I don't think she objected or reacted, maybe she was shocked, but I had earplugs in, and that limits sensory input, so that I might not have heard it anyway, which would have been helpful, because I don't, I didn't want to engage her, I wasn't interested in why this policy, why she felt she could impose it, why she interfered. She didn't touch me, that would have been a whole other level of interaction, she might have got a response from me she would have not expected, but the idea of me not going that way was irrelevant, made no sense to me, nonsensical, I'm going that way. I could have just done it without saying no, but the no seemed important, the word short to the point, clear, unequivocal, no. Not an angry no, not a defiant no, just no. It was interesting, and so I thought I ought to maybe talk about that, because I think normally, typically, most people would have said, oh, sorry, yes, okay, and off they go, walking their 60-yard round trip to get back to exactly the same point, but they have conformed, and perhaps many of those wore masks religiously and were affected fearfully by all the recent malarkey of pandemic and so on. I wasn't, I didn't, I made it my business to separate from all of that, I didn't watch the news, I wasn't involved in their ideas, constantly updating it, constantly changing, it made no difference to me, my life didn't really change at all, I went out just as often as I normally would, I went to the very places I would normally go because they weren't affected, and all the other things that weren't available weren't important to me anyway. So in many ways, it actually made me, my experience of being in the world a bit nicer, actually, much was closed, traffic was lighter, I really appreciated all those things that would never normally happen except under these very strange circumstances. But as far as I was concerned, I'm not part of that, and that's how I experienced it. I am outside outlying, outlaw to some degree, much less, I don't break the law, but it will be broken if it needs to be. I suppose on some level I'm always breaking the law, I'm just doing it in a way that doesn't affect anybody else, just having cannabis, taking cannabis, breaks the law. Simple as that, there's no ifs, ands or buts. Yes, morally there's an argument, I can make it if I needed to, but I don't care, I'm not trying to get anyone to accept what I do or give me permission to do it, I just do it because it's right for me and it doesn't affect anybody else. If I do something that affects anybody else and I'm aware that I'm affecting other people by doing what I'm doing, then I have to look at that a bit more because I have to take into account whether they ought to be affected by it. For instance, if I was a photographer and went around taking pictures of people, and I have come across people becoming offended or affected by having their photograph taken as if they have the right to say whether it happens or doesn't. I say that no one has the right to control the light that bounces off them, can someone tell me not to look at them? Whereas if I take a recording device and capture a tiny moment in time of light that has bounced off of someone, somehow it's up to them, they have a say in it? I don't think so. Now I think they have a say in what I subsequently do with the image I obtain from the light that bounced off of them, that's different, but they have no say in whether I choose to capture it. But not everybody will agree with that opinion, that perspective, and some people are terribly affected if you take their photograph. Just like we walk around outside and are constantly under surveillance by CCTV, state-run CCTV, did they ask my permission to be able to take, record my image as I walk about? No, they just do it. And some people are terribly bothered by the fact that there are cameras everywhere, other people aren't, I'm not. It's all in my head, if I'm affected by thinking that someone is looking at me, that's a problem in my head, and it's not for me to have the world change so that I feel better. I don't need that, I don't need those cameras gone to feel comfortable walking about. Some people are not comfortable, they can't get over this infringement of their rights. Well I don't feel that way. It has its uses, some people say if you're doing nothing wrong then it doesn't matter, and if something happens to you, and if you should have a heart attack or be attacked, then help can come in a quicker way perhaps. So it's not wrong intrinsically, it just has no bearing on me. But it's there, and my permission hasn't been given for the images to be captured because I have no say in it. The light bouncing off me into their cameras is not my business, it's not my concern. What they do with that image, that's different, but for me, in my experience, it doesn't affect me in the slightest, so I'm not concerned. So there's a few kind of ideas about how other people see things that, while I'm not saying I'm unique in the perspective I have, generally the people that I am around don't share the same perspective, and I'm not trying to have them change, I'm not trying to have them see that I'm right and they're wrong. I'm not right and they're not wrong, but I have to live my life my way while also respecting that they have a right to live their life their way. If I choose to leave a supermarket by a non-normal route, it's nobody's concern. I don't break the item to get out, I'm not damaging anything to do so, I don't even have to climb over something fixed. I can just walk out just because I have decided to leave now, and that is the easiest way for me to do it.