He isn't always evil, and he is not always wrong
Another afternoon well spent. It's come to the point where I'm no longer even selected to join a panel before being dismissed, but just asked to wait around in a large room for an hour or two before being told to go home. It's not that I'm trying to shirk my duty, but if I'm never going to serve on a jury, it would be better for everyone involved if I'm not even summoned.
Still, it gives me time to think and read. And I rather enjoy both. I enjoy them more when they're not being constantly interrupted by announcements in three languages, but I take what I can get.
During our time together on Saturday, Jack and I talked through a bit. Being surrounded by people makes one think of certain questions, and we had a conversation something like this:
"What's wrong with us?"
"Us? Nothing."
"Oh, so it's everyone else?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's good to know."
"Yes, it's everyone else. Or more to the point, everyone else is our problem. That's what's wrong with us."
"Okay, so what's wrong with everyone else?"
"They don't care enough. Or they care about the wrong things."
And he thanked me for that. He thanked me for not falling back on "They're stupid.", which is far too easy. Really, I just said the first thing that came to mind and that so happened to be a good and concise way of explaining how I feel. It's not that I'd never considered it from that perspective before, but the easiest thing to do most of the time is just to label others as stupid. And that's wrong. That in and of itself is stupid. I've stated before how I feel about taking the easy way, but it's rather tempting at times, especially since it's so, well, easy.
Orson Scott Card, glorified Mormon hack though he may be, had something to say about this in Speaker For the Dead. When young Libo is asked a question, he pauses before answering. This pause, as explained through the thoughts of his father, is to search for the answer. But it's not to search for the answer the asker seeks, nor is it to search for the answer that will most aggravate the asker. These are the two most common answers sought, especially when the seeker is a boy of that age. Instead, the answer Libo seeks is what he really feels. And it makes Libo a special boy that he looks for that answer. It makes him a special person.
Sometimes it just takes the right person to make you look for something better than the easiest way. It certainly takes some level of motivation and determination, whether you find it in yourself or it's inspired by an outside influence. And if you can get it from a person, that's a special sort of relationship. Now, the lack of a pause on my part isn't to say that I didn't think about it before answering Jack. It's just that I'd thought about it so much before that the answer was there. It presented itself quickly because I'd considered it before. I'd just never been asked that question by the right person, never had occasion to voice my opinion.
But sometimes there is a pause. Sometimes there's a short pause and then a combination of internal monologue and vocal explanation, thinking aloud as I go. Trying to explain something I'd never had to think about, never been pushed to think about. This happened the other day with my girl when she questioned something I said and I found myself in the position of having to explain it. Not having to justify it or sweet-talk my way out of a hole, but explain why I said it. And, as with many things, explaining how I felt mostly to myself and letting her overhear. As usual, that's just a preliminary, something to get me really thinking and sorting it out myself before coming back to it and talking later. And that's a special sort of relationship. Whether she means to or not (and I have my suspicions), she makes me really think and give honest, truthful answers instead of mere flippancies. She makes me dig through my mind and confront what I find instead of shying away from it. She makes me a better person, and I love her for it.
Robert Louis Stevenson may be glorified, but to the best of my knowledge, he was neither Mormon nor a hack. The reading today (on the train and in the jury assembly room) was The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, something I'd been meaning to sit down and really read for some time. The story is familiar to nearly all, and as is common in cases like this, I read it and thought about the reactions in the original audience. I thought about how a reader unfamiliar with the story would take it. I immediately know what it means when Edward Hyde shows up in connection with Henry Jekyll, but those readers did not. The original audience took it in a very shocked and surprised way.
Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I labored, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly toward the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck; that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens.
I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction, and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved day-dream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous fagots were thus bound together-that in the agonized womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then, were they dissociated?
The real problem here is the mistake of attempting to dissociate. It's not a duality, but a complexity of character, and it's perfectly natural. This was a denial of the self, the true complexity of the self, and it was the way of thinking during that time. Everything was black or white, good or evil, one or the other - an idea I cannot support. There are infinite divisions between any two extremes. It's not a question of choosing a side, but of finding harmony with the differing aspects within. There is no need to decide between one thing or the other; one thing does not preclude another. It is acceptance that is needed, not denial. But try to explain that to a Victorian.
"And you never asked about the-place with the door?" said Mr. Utterson.
"No, sir; I had a delicacy," was the reply. "I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden, and the family have to change their name. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask."
"A very good rule, too," said the lawyer.
I'd have to disagree, but it's a matter of context again. That describes a very tactful way to handle things. But sometimes tact isn't good enough. In social settings with people you don't know well, fine. With things that really matter, a different tack is needed. I'd say the more it looks like "Queer Street", the more you should ask. Just be prepared for the answer.
Still, it gives me time to think and read. And I rather enjoy both. I enjoy them more when they're not being constantly interrupted by announcements in three languages, but I take what I can get.
During our time together on Saturday, Jack and I talked through a bit. Being surrounded by people makes one think of certain questions, and we had a conversation something like this:
"What's wrong with us?"
"Us? Nothing."
"Oh, so it's everyone else?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's good to know."
"Yes, it's everyone else. Or more to the point, everyone else is our problem. That's what's wrong with us."
"Okay, so what's wrong with everyone else?"
"They don't care enough. Or they care about the wrong things."
And he thanked me for that. He thanked me for not falling back on "They're stupid.", which is far too easy. Really, I just said the first thing that came to mind and that so happened to be a good and concise way of explaining how I feel. It's not that I'd never considered it from that perspective before, but the easiest thing to do most of the time is just to label others as stupid. And that's wrong. That in and of itself is stupid. I've stated before how I feel about taking the easy way, but it's rather tempting at times, especially since it's so, well, easy.
Orson Scott Card, glorified Mormon hack though he may be, had something to say about this in Speaker For the Dead. When young Libo is asked a question, he pauses before answering. This pause, as explained through the thoughts of his father, is to search for the answer. But it's not to search for the answer the asker seeks, nor is it to search for the answer that will most aggravate the asker. These are the two most common answers sought, especially when the seeker is a boy of that age. Instead, the answer Libo seeks is what he really feels. And it makes Libo a special boy that he looks for that answer. It makes him a special person.
Sometimes it just takes the right person to make you look for something better than the easiest way. It certainly takes some level of motivation and determination, whether you find it in yourself or it's inspired by an outside influence. And if you can get it from a person, that's a special sort of relationship. Now, the lack of a pause on my part isn't to say that I didn't think about it before answering Jack. It's just that I'd thought about it so much before that the answer was there. It presented itself quickly because I'd considered it before. I'd just never been asked that question by the right person, never had occasion to voice my opinion.
But sometimes there is a pause. Sometimes there's a short pause and then a combination of internal monologue and vocal explanation, thinking aloud as I go. Trying to explain something I'd never had to think about, never been pushed to think about. This happened the other day with my girl when she questioned something I said and I found myself in the position of having to explain it. Not having to justify it or sweet-talk my way out of a hole, but explain why I said it. And, as with many things, explaining how I felt mostly to myself and letting her overhear. As usual, that's just a preliminary, something to get me really thinking and sorting it out myself before coming back to it and talking later. And that's a special sort of relationship. Whether she means to or not (and I have my suspicions), she makes me really think and give honest, truthful answers instead of mere flippancies. She makes me dig through my mind and confront what I find instead of shying away from it. She makes me a better person, and I love her for it.
Robert Louis Stevenson may be glorified, but to the best of my knowledge, he was neither Mormon nor a hack. The reading today (on the train and in the jury assembly room) was The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, something I'd been meaning to sit down and really read for some time. The story is familiar to nearly all, and as is common in cases like this, I read it and thought about the reactions in the original audience. I thought about how a reader unfamiliar with the story would take it. I immediately know what it means when Edward Hyde shows up in connection with Henry Jekyll, but those readers did not. The original audience took it in a very shocked and surprised way.
Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I labored, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly toward the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck; that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens.
I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction, and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved day-dream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous fagots were thus bound together-that in the agonized womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then, were they dissociated?
The real problem here is the mistake of attempting to dissociate. It's not a duality, but a complexity of character, and it's perfectly natural. This was a denial of the self, the true complexity of the self, and it was the way of thinking during that time. Everything was black or white, good or evil, one or the other - an idea I cannot support. There are infinite divisions between any two extremes. It's not a question of choosing a side, but of finding harmony with the differing aspects within. There is no need to decide between one thing or the other; one thing does not preclude another. It is acceptance that is needed, not denial. But try to explain that to a Victorian.
"And you never asked about the-place with the door?" said Mr. Utterson.
"No, sir; I had a delicacy," was the reply. "I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden, and the family have to change their name. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask."
"A very good rule, too," said the lawyer.
I'd have to disagree, but it's a matter of context again. That describes a very tactful way to handle things. But sometimes tact isn't good enough. In social settings with people you don't know well, fine. With things that really matter, a different tack is needed. I'd say the more it looks like "Queer Street", the more you should ask. Just be prepared for the answer.