It’s a sin, I’m sure. That smug feeling that you know best and the poor shmuck sitting across from you trying to be heard is an idiot.
I don’t actively seek out that feeling, but I admit, Gentle Penguin, every now and again it rears its oh-so-powerful talons and waits to catch the prey who doesn’t even know it’s prey so it can gloat and feel betterthan. I should know better than to let it possess me, but then again, I know better than to engage in any philosophical discussion after two glasses of wine and a full stomach.
My past two weeks have been constant battles with my kids, my colleagues, European regulators, punks destroying property in my neighborhood, and even the traffic. Perhaps I was just stuck in battle mode. Perhaps I was looking for a fight with the world. But even when I started I knew it was no fair picking the fight with the 21-year-old idealist who hasn’t been taught to think critically yet.
It was the first of many mistakes I made. But likely the most critical.
I’d like to say I listened to his idealism. I’d like to even say I listened to his idealism with skepticism. But my smugness chorused through my head like a big band parade leaving no room or sound space for anything to do with him. When he was finished speaking, I pounced with my question in a haughty, razor-sharp manner. When he didn’t have the answer, I refused him a graceful exit, dismissing him as a thug who was tipping at windmills he couldn’t even see.
I see now that he’ll never know that I actually admire his gumption and passion—it’s a million times better than the rampant disconcert and dissociation among the many—and he’ll likely just dismiss me and the event as a bully…or worse. So I achieved nothing of value.
The Fates must have been watching and decided to provide their judgment swiftly for I soon found myself in another discussion about my city. My beloved city that I have adored and hated and adore again. My beloved city that I give so much of myself to improving. My beloved city that I would likely have and always will defend with a fierceness akin to warrior defending a kingdom.
When the visitor said he loved the city more than I did, I should have walked away. There is never anything good, no purpose nor production, in continuing any conversation that includes superlatives over another. But I was drunk on my self-righteousness and perhaps tipsy from the bullying I’d just pulled off. And by now I’d finished a third glass of wine.
So I engaged…and as could be soberly predicted, I soon found myself slipping close to the edge of curse words and peaked cheeks and the urge to scream, “Why aren’t you listening to anything I say?! People who claim to love a city immensely don’t move to another city and speak ills of the one they love, nor do they pull names of people long gone from the town who in net provided little to the betterment of place or time here as their reasons to believe in their ‘enduring love.’” But he wouldn’t hear my reasoning, he merely insulted my town more, insulted me and then dismissed me as someone who didn’t know what she was talking about, and probably had had too much to drink. Why wouldn’t he just acknowledge that I love the city too and stop saying derogatory things about it and me?
I was now the prey being squeezed in the talons of a self-righteous bully. And I didn’t like it one bit. Why did he feel the need to reduce me? But I was reduced to the little girl trying to rationalize with someone who merely wanted to throw punches. I’d been punched a lot as that little girl trying to appeal to people’s critical thinking skills. And I swore I wouldn’t be her again. But here I was. With no graceful escape myself.
I closed my mouth, gathered my things and left. And like the child I was, I pouted…and I plotted. I wanted someone to stand up for me, to cause him as much pain as he caused me…
I bet that’s what my prey thought too as he left disgraced, disrespected and defeated. Like him, I won’t reflect on anything my bully said to me. I won’t learn anything from him. I’ll just forever see him as an ass who cared only about his own self-righteousness.
Like I had done just shortly before.
Later, I lay in bed trying to sleep but cursed with the scenes of both discussions playing over and over and over again. What had the kid wanted from me when I so disrespectfully dismissed him? Acknowledgement, for one. And it probably wouldn’t have hurt to let him know I did admire his gumption and passion, how important it is to have ideals.
I vowed to never again engage in passionate discourse over wine (or other alcohol…perhaps also to limit my social drinking to two in order to avoid the temptation to break this vow of not engaging in passionate discourse), to learn to shut my mouth and open my ears far more often than I do…especially when surrounded by new and interesting people, and to apologize for every other self-righteous moment I’ve ever had.
Gentle Penguin, I’m truly sorry. I still have a lot of work to do to be a better person.
