What I find so compelling about the movie “Crash” is the intricate and fragile characters that each of the main and supporting actors portray. The jaded policeman played by Matt Dillon whose abuse of power to shame a couple to the point of sexual abuse makes you feel absolute disdain for them, yet then you see the struggle he faces with his father‘s illness and the frustration he feels trying to get him the medical help he needs, and then the complete lack of consideration for his own safety in order to save the life of a stranger … you can’t help but wonder which of them is “the real” John Ryan. Or the relatively small and simple role of the district attorneys’ housekeeper. What an elegant individual she turns out to be as she moves from being completely invisible to Sandra Bullock’s character until nobody is available or willing to respond to her emotional need for recognition of the human being that she is, despite the distrust she faces in daily life. The whole movie is filled with characters facing internal struggle, conflict, assumptions and judgments, and moments when they are at their best, worst, most honest and most vulnerable.I’m not always paying attention to what’s around me, to the people around me, or considering the situations that each of these people might face in their own lives. And they’re likely not thinking of me. From an isolated viewpoint, I am nobody to them. They are nobody to me. But as a component of a society or of our humanity even, they are me and I am them. Like millions of cells that make up a larger entity. Perhaps we should all be more conscious of this as we work through this short timeframe in history that we call our lives.