Getting too invested in the fight

I'm realizing after a weekend of reflection about Brandi, about the sad and polarized state of American and international politics, right now, about other problems in my own life, that the central problem - bigger than any of the particular problems we face - is the persistent and counterproductive and foolish fighting we engage in which generally undermines both solutions to our problems and the relationships that make those solutions possible.

It takes me back to Brandi and I in the fall of 2001, when it was perfectly clear to both of us that the problem was the constant fighting rather than any particular thing we fought about. It was the fact that we just kept fighting instead of discussing solutions calmly or making peace with reasonable compromises. We wore our passion on our sleeves as a pride that we cared so much about one another and about the things we gave our energies to, in life. Which was true. But perhaps too much passion by half.

Because when all was said and done, we took down that relationship. We don't even talk today. And really, which one of those fights was worth all that? I can't think of one.

Most of the fights we have in politics and the world, these days, are about the fights, rather than an effort to understand and discuss problems and their solutions more fully. Most of the issues around peoples' behavior and having people behave better are a function of fights that people have with the society at large and fights that the society at large has with making people conform to various norms.

Most of our problems are functions more of the fighting and the refusal to cut it out and to work more collaboratively than around particular issues and challenges we face.

We can stop. We choose not to. And the world is a serious mess, today, because of it.

I really have no clue where human beings got the notion that aggression would solve more of their problems than it would. I suppose it's about being an aggressive animal, too often getting our way through aggression - though we know it is contrary to our values that we need to earn others' trust rather than forcing their hand - and learning to be responsible for that freely rather than being restrained externally, which really feels natural to noone, if they're honest about it. Usually people feel much more comfortable restraining someone else than with being restrained. We just play bullshit semantic games to pretend otherwise.

I'll never forget those waning days in our apartment in Kansas City when Brandi and I knew - and fought, ironically and sadly, about the fact - that it was the fighting that was our most serious problem and none of the particular issues we fought about. It's all so foolish and sad, in retrospect. But we just keep fighting, despite knowing that this was the problem. And within a month, Brandi had signed a lease on a new apartment on her own.

It's so sad and foolish. This sport of fighting that people play with one another that is constantly interrupting the more important priorities we face.

But I suppose what we are learning to be responsible for is what to do with all that aggression that we, generally, have not thought nearly enough about. And that we alternately suppress, avoid, engage needlessly, and otherwise handle poorly while we figure out what to do next.

It's all so foolish and needlessly tragic. But I suppose that it is the lesson we have to learn until we've got it more figured out.

So maybe that is the purpose of the current period. Maybe that was the purpose of Brandi's and my relationship imploding. So that we could learn the lesson better. So at least I could learn the lesson better.

I've got a paper to finish up. And many fights in my life that I need to give up. And many fights that we all need to give up if we're to be the self-governing, free, democratic people that we have the promise and the need to be. And maybe just so we can get some stuff done and get home to our family and kids and learn to treat one another with respect and not like pets or servants or handmaidens or slaves. Or friends or family to be taken for granted until we wisen up.

Maybe we just need to learn to treat each other decent.

Love,
Ben