Random Neural Firings: The Only Thing My Folks Did Not Prepare Me For.
Here is a glimpse into the sense of humor my parents instilled in me.
Setting:
It was mt first semester of college. This was in the oldy times before texting and mobile phones. These were dark days where landline calls involved antiquated day and night rates and time based charges. And we.. often wrote… letters with our hands! And had to mail them… and then the other person had to wait for them. <shudder> Actually was not that bad. Not better. Different. I rather liked letters. As a result, we only spoke once a week. No phone in my room. What are we royalty? Took the call at the payphones at the end of the dorm hallway.
Background:
I am very close to my folks. Despite the efforts of some ignorant locals in the upstate NY hamlet where I was raised, my childhood was fantastic, full of laughs and great memories. This changed little after high school as I stumbled my way into adulthood. This journey of transition from strictly a dependent to eventual friend and close confidant started with me being placed hundreds of miles away at the place of learning my uncles graduated from.
To the point at hand.
One night early in this new space I called my parents for our weekly catch up. My Mother and I had the following exchange:
Me: How dare you?
Mom: How dare I what?
Me: How dare you!?!?
Mom: What are you talking about?
Me: How dare you raise me in a sane, calm, and reasonable household and then send me out into this insane world.
We laughed.
But I was completely serious.
Things are a bit different when you do not have a safe haven to return to every evening after school and you live among your peers. In these added hours of interaction with the general populous, I had witnessed behavior from my schoolmates that left me speechless. I had no background that prepared me for it. For example, one person blew their top for little to no reason over matters of little consequence. I declined the offer to join in. Yet I was treated like the odd man out. Anger was even thrown my way for not participating.
If you are wondering what I am on about let me give you a little more background about my household.
I witnessed debates, but never arguments.
No one ever called anyone out of their name.
No one ever raised their voice.
If we had a concern or issue we raised it, discussed it, and came to some manner of compromise. This could be anything from the offended party admitting they misunderstood to the offender seeing the error of their ways and everything in between.
Up until my Dad passed away I said if he ever yelled my name I would probably faint from utter shock.
Anger was infrequent and short lived if it ever did arise.
It was lovely honestly.
Not bragging. Not saying other ways of communicating are invalid. But these many years later I prefer the way of my folks.
When describing this I am often met with disbelief. Those closest to me got to witness it for themselves. Those who are not… does it really matter whether they believe me or not? Not really. I have not spent any time trying to convince anyone of anything.
It is what I have tried to emulate in our home.
But here is the thing.
This way of operating requires some things.
Willing participants.
Distancing one’s self from others who are not willing.
So the title of this post. What is it that this did not prepare me for?
Simply put.
Cruel people.
Horrible people.
Unreasonable people.
<clears throat> Not too bright people.
Those who choose blame over self-improvement.
And it is now clear that those are the exact people who have been given the reigns of this nation. Or more accurately those are the folks that elevated their avatar to the highest office in the land.
Allow me to step back for a moment.
I hold no delusions regarding any party presently.
Both seem intent on making this all a matter of differences between different religious, ethnic, regional, gender, and gender-identifying factions of the masses.
But that is not what is really occurring.
This is a have versus the have not and not have nearly as much as they think they do affair.
The wealthy class loves this. The blue and red factions squabble over crumbs while the green, monied interests run off with the cake.
The issue in my humble opinion? That one group above.
The ones that do not have nearly as much as they think they do. Put another way here is a recent FB demi rant of mine.
What I figured out very young while attempting to sort out what on Earth went on in the minds of my grade school classmates after witnessing staggering displays of cognitive dissonance time and time again in a non diverse upstate NY hamlet was that many are happy to lose repeatedly and perpetually if they are constantly told that they too are amongst the winners.
Along the same lines good ole’ LBJ stated the following years ago:
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
As outlined in a Snopes verification of the quote it states the source as a young news staffer at the time, Bill Moyers,
“…after encountering a display of blatant racism during a political visit to the South. Moyers tells it in the first person:
We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it,” he said. “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
In the blunt vernacular that he loved to use, LBJ was describing what the television pundits of today would probably call the politics of resentment and divisiveness. It is still very much with us.”
Many words are spilled today. Much of it is watered down. The group willing to sell others down the river (A purposefully charged metaphor that is quite intentional.) has expanded to those who would themselves have been sold down the river when that phrase was coined. While relatively distant those far too close to my own gene pool for my comfort fall into this number. In an exchange forced by a loss in the family one gleefully shared their support for the convicted felon. I begged them to move on since that was not at all the purpose of the call. I did close with the fact that nothing they could say would sway me to betray our ancestors and then the call ended. I will not be reaching out to assess the aftermath of them being played like a fiddle but I have heard through the grapevine that those who have asked received no response.
Does not matter to me.
I am not so arrogant as to believe anything I could say would sway them. More importantly, it is not my responsibility to cognitively and empathetically rehabilitate the willfully ignorant.
Pass.
I leave that fool’s errand to others. I like my peace of mind thank you very much.
But looking back at that freshman year experience, further conversations with my parents and life’s experiences did prepare me for:
Cruel people.
Horrible people.
Unreasonable people.
<clears throat> Not too bright people.
Those who choose blame over self-improvement.
The remedies? The only ones I have found are:
Distance, real and virtual, from ignorance.
Continuing to better myself as best as I can.
Aligning myself with those of sound mind and character.
I close with this. As my Father would say:
“Who is the larger fool? The fool or one who knowingly argues with a fool? The casual observer will be hard pressed to distinguish between the two.”
-RLW
When someone chooses to show anger choose not to join them. Anger in retaliation is not a show of strength, but rather exhibits weakness, or more specifically a lack of self control. It renders one nearly incapable of retaining their better faculties. Channeling energies into a deliberate, coherent response (including walking away if need be) in the face of rage-driven bombast confounds those who seek to condemn. The only good thing about anger is that it is a choice, not an inevitability. Even if you find yourself within the clutches of anger’s custody you are not under arrest and free to go whenever you choose. I am a witness.
-ELW
Eric L. Woods 