In Awe

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Continue to turn over and over the organic details of your life

until some of them fall through the garbage of discursive thoughts

to the firm ground of black soil. Natalie Goldberg

I was recently invited to attend an event organized to celebrate the past accomplishments of a fellow colleague. Although the stated objective was sincere and warranted, the underlying motivation behind this event was the fact that this individual recently lost his wife of forty years to a decade-long fight with cancer. Clearly an admirable purpose and I was proud to be counted as one of the several attending. Empathy is a trait that is unfortunately in short supply and I try to make a deposit whenever I can.

The attendees at the event are well-educated and thoughtful people. In general, they mean well. They also are predominantly politically oriented to the left and given our current presidency, cannot engage in conversation about meaningful topics without interjecting with pointed, political comments. They were all preaching to the choir. Now, I choose to carve out a spot in the political and philosophical continuum that is neither to the left or the right. I guess you could say I am politically ambidextrous. Nevertheless, I am typically anti-institutional and anti-elite. Needless to say, at the risk of being publically flogged, it was best to keep my thoughts to myself.

So why am I writing about this event? It’s because I became increasingly bothered by the comments of the many, not because of their specific stands, but because of the context of their comments. As individuals spoke, they prefaced their comments by recognizing the honoree, or others in the room, as being very smart people. Now maybe I am paranoid or cynical, but I read through these declarations of human intelligence as a means to separate the chosen few from the masses of less intelligent inhabitants in our society. And just to be upfront here, those less intelligent people are typically aligned with the other political party, and/or more traditional lifestyles and belief systems. Okay, maybe I’m taking extreme liberty with my interpretation here, but what the hell, this is my blog and these are my feelings. Although I don’t believe their intentions were mean-spirited, their personas were both arrogant and insulting. We wonder why we have such a deep divide in our society!

As I was diving home from the event, I started to look inward and became very self-critical. Now, I am a voracious reader and I truly enjoy being exposed to interesting things. In fact, I am typically quick to seek out an unsuspecting ear to share newfound information and how I view this new knowledge in context of the world. It’s like when the Grinch had the epiphany that the inhabitants of “Whoville” see Christmas as much more than the gifts and feast. I had the revelation that maybe I was one of “those people” who feels compelled to enlighten others with the “truth”. Shit, am I a douchebag?! Why do I feel compelled to engage others in my opinions or diatribe? In general, nobody gives a crap about other’s opinions. Furthermore, most people are resistant to ideological conversion unless the prophet is one of their tribe’s already anointed. Again, preaching to the choir.

Going forward, I am going to keep my opinions to myself. I may write about them in this blog, but unless you are truly interested in what I have to say, you can easily move on. No, I cannot force you to listen to my crap when I’m writing. You are free from my sneak attack. Also, if you are masochistic enough to solicit my thoughts, I will strive to weed out the blowhard, arrogant, self-aggrandizing, opinionated, dogmatic verbiage and speak in a way that says, I’m not better than you and I want to hear what you think and feel. We’re all valuable human beings who have reasons for our beliefs, values and fears. I don’t expect you to look at me in awe, waiting for me to share pearls of wisdom. This shouldn’t be too hard given I’m not particularly smart. What I want to be is one of “those guys” who enjoys civil conversations, not for the purpose of debate and conquest, but to enrich our travels along this path of discovery. I am a work in progress. Be in awe of that.

#Elitism #Empathy