Happy Medium

From political leanings to meal portions I'm a pretty moderate fellow. I don't like excess or extremes. Idealism is admirable, but I prefer practicality, which requires compromising, not absolutes. That's one thing that bugs me about a lot of college courses, too much theory, not enough action. The grandest visions are rarely implemented. Coupled with this, I'm also quite an optimist. I always try and find something to take away from a situation, something to hang on to, and I take comfort in small or partial victories and try to focus on those. It makes life so much more bearable. Finally, I also usually do my best to avoid confrontation. Aside from being inherently unpleasant, most of it is just so useless. Wounded prides and emotionally charged rhetoric are not valid motivations for fighting.

Radicals, like the founding fathers, are the ones who change the world in radical ways, but I'm not looking to do that. Even if I was given the opportunity to amend society as I saw fit, I don't think the changes I'd want to make would be that drastic, we don't need a full scale revolution again. Are there problems with capitalism? Yeah, big honking ones, but are they so severe I'd dedicate my life to overthrowing the establishment in what is almost certain to be a fruitless effort, either leaving a gaping hole of failure at the center of my last years or potentially injuring my self or my chances at future happiness in the process? The answer to that is a resounding no. The system isn't intolerable, it's just not perfect, changes can be made from the inside to. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean you have to fight them. Diplomacy can work. Minds can be changed. Those same founding fathers deliberated for decades and exhausted all peaceful methods before finally resigning themselves to the fact that violent struggle was the only possible means to their highly justified end. But now I'm getting off track...

Too many people in this world are too bitter, too partisan. Too many people just want a battle to fight, and they'll make mountains out of mole hills so they can do it. They draw the lines of "us and them" and there is no middle ground; a dialectic, a binary, a dichotomy, pick your obnoxious academic phrase, because they're all depressingly appropriate. Too many people are too cynical, you can always find something to be happy about, so stop being such downers. Cynicism has its place, it helps keep in check those in power from getting away with too much, but that doesn't mean a person has to live their whole life jaded, what a waste. And I hate that corporate culture seems to have bred it into people that granting someone a reprieve is a sign of weakness. Forgive and Forget.

For years in my social life I have been forced to walk a tight-rope, again and again. It happened in high school from time to time, it happened in college on a seismic level, the effects of which I still feel every day, and it happened again in New Zealand on a major scale. Everyone starts off cordially enough, being civil, inviting everyone to join them. Then slowly, allegiances begin to form, favorites are chosen, cliques emerge. Soon after, people offend, people take offense, people hold grudges, people refuse to forgive. Or, in the words of my good friends at Music TeleVision, "people stop being polite... and start getting real!" which blatantly overlooks the fact that not everyone is a sensationalist or a drama queen, some people are just flat out polite. And time after time, I seem to be the one, or one of the few, in the middle.

Whose side are you on man? Are you with us or against us? Well I don't want to choose sides. Don't make me choose! Don't make me be some one's enemy just because you're all too petty too bury the hatchet or look at their good qualities. In the enduring words of Tom Erickson, "Ban Drama." It's like playing real life Diplomacy, and I'm Russia trying to somehow broker a treaty between Germany and Britain, or perhaps a less violent Lord of the Flies would be a better analogy, a slow decay in to increasingly divided factions, forcing everyone to pick one. Why can't we all just get along? Follow my lead, it's not that hard.

Is it possible to be friends with everyone? No, what makes friends a friend is that they're not just anyone. It's a special connection chosen out of mutual interest. You wouldn't have a personality if you didn't favor some people's company over others. Regardless though, this is no excuse for not being respectful of everyone else, or for condemning a friend for wishing to spend time with someone you don't get along with yourself. And yet, I've more or less been forced to stand on one side of the line in the sand or the other every time, or risk being left all alone, abandoned by both. The old advice is that if someone doesn't want to be friends with your friends, then they're not your friend, but if both sides say this, then who's left? I've been called disloyal, accused of fraternizing with the enemy, forced by both parties into an ultimatum. These choices have left me with some deep-seeded resentment towards some of my closest pals for making me choose at all. After my decision, every time I cross the border it becomes uncomfortable. I'm still allowed in by the other side, but the rift is present, if unspoken, and usually genuine geniality has been transformed into awkward formality. It's like a kid's clubhouse, it seems so juvenile. Why did it have to come to this?

I can enjoy hanging out with a lot of different people with a lot of varieties of personality and senses of humor. Certainly I find some of these people more enjoyable or engaging to hang out with than others, but I still feel loyalty to this latter group and make time for them. I'm also quite patient; I can put up with the bad to get to the good. For a variety of reasons from hastiness to snobbery to clashes in taste, many of these people don't approve of each other however. Rather than put up with one another, many of them simply ignore, avoid, or simply insult one another, and aren't afraid of making it known, a big source of these messes.

As for me, I'm a big proponent of avoiding disputes. If I ever ran for public office (which I'd likely never do for fear of getting caught up in such a controversy) my campaign platform would be simple: promote friendship. If I find I agree with someone, I tend to instinctively over-emphasize the level of my agreement, something I'm trying to work on as it feels dishonest. At the same time, if I realize I disagree with a person, I usually down-play the vigor of my stance or simply refrain from stating my position at all. 95% of discussion topics are largely inconsequential, so why would I try and create a division between someone and myself any more than I had to? As long as I'm not actually lying or contradicting my views, I feel this is more than worth it. I don't care enough about most issues to bother causing a stir over them and usually try and drop the argument unless I feel like my adequacy or intelligence is under attack, in which case, even though I should know better than to buy into such silly notions, I often do end up bickering. Few things are worth arguing heatedly over though, and even less are worth physically fighting over. If your beef happens to fall into one of those rare categories, by all means engage the battle, some things can't be compromised, but if not, then why waste the effort and the anger? The sooner my friends and the world at large learn that fact the better.

Once I was with two acquaintances who were debating some particular political issue of overblown importance. Praying they wouldn't ask me my opinion on this divisive subject proved fruitless and, unconfidently, as I truly didn't know all the angles of this issue, I stated my half-informed opinion. The representative from the opposite faction quickly countered with a series of potential special cases regarding this rule, which I responded to with a protracted pause full of guttural sounds, followed by a mumbled stuttering that there were always exceptions. Then the other acquaintance implored me, almost enraged, to "Take a Stand Man!" at which point I simply sighed that I didn't know what I thought and silently resigned myself to glowers from both sides. What I wanted to say though was, "Why? Why should I take a rigid stand about something I'm not totally educated on and have no control over, and begin to antagonize others in the process?" a declaration which in itself would have been ironically antagonistic. It just all seems so unnecessary.

Too many people are too invested in ultimately meaningless things, too stubborn, and too unforgiving. Patience really is a virtue and many would do themselves and their society a favor to learn that. Personally, I do my best to keep my temper. Often now, even within the smaller circle of college friends whom I was prodded into choosing, I am looked to as the guy who settles an argument. The Great Mediator. The one who tries to coolly explain everything that has happened, keep those in check who are getting out of line, and try and assess the situation, which often ends up with me declaring the point moot, a statement usually grudgingly agreed with. Maybe in time they'll realize the thrill of the fight isn't all it's cracked up to be: the fight has consequences.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have opinions, or even that you shouldn't express them, but simply that oftentimes an opinion is just that. It's usually subjective and, what's more, people physically can perceive different phenomena in different ways, and subsequently react differently to them as well. So, don't act as if your own perspective is the be all end all. Be open to disparate interpretations and if you still don't agree, don't be cruel or hostile about it.

Naturally none of this is to say that I don't get out of line my self sometimes. Of course I do, depending on who you are, you've almost certainly seen me do so in fact. I have been petty, divisive, have lost my temper, and I have been too quick to take sides before. Ultimately though, I strive to strike a balance in my life, to keep an even keel, take the middle of the road. Perhaps subconsciously that's even how I picked my field of study; my urban planning professor recently declared his class to be the perfect balance of art and science, between the intuitive and the systematic. This all becomes harder though when the fringes try and pull the center apart. I want to be non-polarizing, but I don't want to be alone in the middle, or to step farther than I'd like on to one side or the other, a big reason why I largely detest two-party politics. I want everyone to span the spectrum (social, political, or otherwise), to engage one-another, to give second chances, and not to grow jealous. I want to be friends with who I want to be friends with, one friendship shouldn't have to infringe upon another. Is it really that hard to play nice? Say it ain't so. Everyone is unique, I get that, but at the core we can't be all that different, and for me, I guess, reconciling differences doesn't seem that hard. The person who doesn't forgive risks being consumed by their bottled anger. So can't we all try one more time? I know you can do it. Don't offend, if you do, apologize, if a victim, take it in stride, let it go. I don't know how much more pushing and pulling I can take, I may be losing my balance, so please, I'm pleading with you all, try and be friends, try and get along!