Change comes from the edges

Somewhere in my 4,000-book collection, I have a book that talks about a peace negotiator who worked with Rwanda (?or maybe Northern Ireland?). They said that the only way to move past the anger, hate, and fear was for both parties to accept 100% responsibility.

Not 50/50: 100%.

That means we don’t get to play the victim anymore. That we don’t get to pursue revenge. To get the other guy, that bad guy, who made things worse.

We have to step forward, offer an olive branch, and accept that we may have to turn the other cheek.

We have to resist temptation.

There wasn’t room in my life for that negativity.

Many years ago, I discovered that people I hung out with in high school had formed a chat room. Cool! I asked to be invited and one of them added me.

A few days later, I logged on and found my in-box filled with hate and conflict: one person from the group was poking and provoking another person. The first person was highly successful, with a huge public following and a lot of money and power. The other person was mentally unstable and had been since high school. Confused and on the brink. He was vulnerable. And the first person was supposedly his friend.

Person A had always been a bully – our first interaction was him bullying me, a 14-year old he had just met, who thought it was cool that he had achieved as much as he had while still in high school. I wasn’t asking for anything from him; I just wanted to admire his gumption. And he bullied me. Which told me who he was pretty quickly. And he proved that first impression right each time I interacted with him after that.

So it didn’t surprise me that he was bullying this person. He called it “debate” but it was ugly and stirred up raw emotions. And he was clearly enjoying himself. It made him feel big, important. He didn’t have to torment this troubled soul – he got paid to torment people on-air every day, for crying out loud – but I guess he liked how it made him feel.

I left the chat room that very day. As much as I had enjoyed spending time with that group, there wasn’t room in my life for that negativity.

They just liked to argue.

Years later, I invited a couple over to dinner. My husband and I had worked hard to prepare the meal: appetizers, cocktails, five-course meal cooked from scratch, accompanied by fine wine, dessert with after-dinner drink. (In those days, we did this every month, just for fun, go figure.)

When the couple arrived, they were arguing. They argued through appetizers. Through dinner. Through dessert. Through coffee. My husband and I couldn’t get a word in. We tried changing the subject. No dice. Finally, I announced I was headed to bed and they left, still arguing.

They were both lawyers.

They liked to argue.

Here’s the thing that annoyed me the most: they were arguing on the same dang side. They were discussing a political matter and both agreed that the politician in question was going down for what he had done. That he deserved to go down. No debate there.

But they disagreed on what he would go down for. One believed he would go down for lying; the other believed he would go down for some other technical thing.

I didn’t care. If that’s debate, I’ll take vanilla.

It ruined an evening that my husband and I had looked forward to.

It didn’t change anyone’s mind – except ours about having them for dinner again.

Some people like to argue. James Carville and Mary Matalin liked to argue. It brought them together; it became their schtick. But they couldn’t keep it up in the end.

Not everyone likes to argue.

Some of us don’t really care who is right or wrong; or who is winning the argument.

It’s not that important to us.

There are too many emotionally vulnerable people and too many guns.

These are dangerous days. Things are changing quickly – too quickly for some people. The mental health system is broken. People are in a delicate state. More people than ever.

And they’re not happy about it.

Guns are widely available in the U.S. and these unhappy people have access to them. They are using them to express their displeasure and dysfunction. At schools. At rallies. At churches.

After all we’ve been through, I can’t imagine that the number of guns easily available will go down in the immediate future.

Or the number of people who feel unheard, bullied, broken. And who lack the cognitive function to resist the temptation to express their fear and anger, their frustration, with guns.

So it’s up to those of us who can, to take 100% responsibility.

Instead of proving that we’re right, instead of playing the victim, instead of condemning those who disagree, instead of looking for ways to hurt them before they hurt us, instead of looking for ways to make them feel bad because we disagree with them – we need to take 100% responsibility.

We need to log off social media. We need to tone down the rhetoric. We need to turn off the TV.

Influencers, media commentators, politicians – they like to argue. They have thick skins and need to fill a lot of air time. Even if they posture that they are upset, they probably are not. They’re used to being in the spotlight – they put themselves in the spotlight – and they are used to posturing and using rhetoric to rally voters behind them and get re-elected (or make money or acquire power or whatever).

But the rest of us don’t have to emulate them.

And we don’t have to reward those who do it with votes or likes or clicks or views.

We can just block them and focus on the more important things in life.

Like making peace with our neighbors.

My friend is the nicest person I know.

We’ve been friends since high school and he was nice then. He’s nice now. He’s married to a nice woman. And they have nice children.

And I’m not talking entry-level, price-of-admission nice here. I’m talking really, really nice. Genuinely kind and generous and empathetic.

He’s at the other end of the political spectrum that I am. I know this only because another high school friend sees his posts online and tells me that they are vituperous.

My friend – he who I am told is posting – continues to see me on a regular basis although he knows that I hold different views from him. Although, since our mutual friend revealed the strength of his views, I have been careful to be polite about what I choose to share, I am sure that I sometimes inadvertently say things that directly contradict views that he holds strongly.

And he never says a word. He continues to tolerate my views. He continues to be the nicest person I know. I am never nervous when I see him – I still enjoy his company.

It’s up to each of us.

A few weeks ago, I attended a community meeting on a topic that I feel strongly about, where they encouraged people on both sides of the issue to speak to the decision-makers. I signed up to speak and I was fired up. The process seemed unfair. The deck seemed stacked. I hastily wrote a speech on the back of a napkin and prepared to stand up and make myself heard.

My speaking slot was later in the evening. And, as I listened to those on the other side make their arguments, I grew restless and angry. The temperature of the audience was also growing hot – others felt excluded, un-listened to. My napkin-speech was edited and edited again, becoming more and more strongly worded, fighting point with point, proving that I was right and the previous speakers were wrong.

About five minutes before I was supposed to speak, a man stood up to speak. He didn’t make the case for the other side. He didn’t present (inflated) numbers. He didn’t decry my side as being out-of-touch, old, rich white people, who didn’t understand what it was like to be young and unemployed, or people of color, or people who needed affordable housing, or jobs, as others had.

Instead he spoke quietly for less than 2 minutes about how hard it was for people who were poor. People who couldn’t find places to live or jobs. People who always seemed to be on the losing side. He didn’t ask for pity – he spoke simply and quietly, dialing down the rhetoric.

And I crossed out half my speech. He had taken the air out of my anger and replaced it with compassion.

I still felt strongly about this issue, but I no longer felt the need to prove I was right or that they were wrong. I no longer felt the need to win. I just wanted to express my fear, my dismay, my concern.

I let myself be vulnerable.

We all need to let ourselves be vulnerable.

Not everyone is going to go along with this. I accept that there are people out there who are too broken or blind to let down the wall of speech that protects them from the pain or fear that they feel. People who have to prove that they’re right or that they have to win. And a lot of bots from bad actors outside the U.S. who are trying to bring democracy down to prove something of their own.

But we don’t have to let them get to us.

We can, like my nice friend (who, if what I hear is true, really should quit social media), tolerate the faults and beliefs that our friends and family hold. We can, like the man at that meeting, speak quietly about what frightens us, what worries us.

Because so many of us share the same fears. Fears that the world is changing and we’re being left behind. Fears that our children won’t have a chance to do as well as we have, if not better. Fears that people we care about will be targeted for being “unacceptable”. Fears that we won’t be able to get a job or put food on the table or a roof over our head. Fears that when we are older and need care, we won’t be able to afford it or find it. Fears that people won’t like us or that they’ll think we’re stupid or unworthy. Fears that the U.S. – that the world – is becoming unsafe. Fears that our hopes and dreams are becoming unattainable.

Fears that everything is going to hell in a handbasket and there’s not a dang thing we can do about it.

No matter which “side” you’re on, these fears probably resonate with you.

So be kind to your neighbors and family and friends and coworkers. Log off when the rhetoric in your favorite social media or TV show is hijacking your amygdala. Take a deep breath, go for a walk. Tell your child or your spouse or your cat that you love them.