Committed to Non-Commitment.
I have strong opinion on people with opinions and it is one of the few I hold on to. People with strong, set in stone opinions terrify me, people who always know how things should be done annoy me, people who are always willing to enlighten me on the last inventions or bring me up to date on the recent political or social or cultural developments, grind on my nerves. All I want to do is to scream at the top of my lungs “Go away, just go away.”
I refrain from reading newspapers which is a constant feud between me and my husband who is an avid reader of news and articles of all sorts and every once in awhile will try to engage me in a debate on this issue or another. Seeing my blank face he sighs and gives up.
On the rare occasions that I do look at the daily paper, delivered to my front porch every morning, I will start from the last page; look at the weather, some classified ads, pass a quick glance at the first page and toss it to the fireplace as a fire starter where it is usually proving to be pretty useless.
I never read the editorials, letter to the editor, or any other form of writing people use to express what is wrong in the world and how we should fix our torn and tortured planet.
It is not because I don’t care about the last disaster in Japan, or the wide use of nuclear power, or the people of Libya fighting for their freedom, or the sad state of public education in general and in Maine or the disappearing of the Aral sea in the hands of dense birocrates, or the slow and painful death of democracy in Israel.
It is not because I don’t see the pain and suffering all around or the abuse of the systems we put together to help those who are suffering. I do believe that animals should be spare the cruelty some go through in the hands their humans but question the point where an animal life take precedence to human life. I think that every human being has the right to safe and loving environment and that no child should be left behind.
And yes, I heard the phrase “let there be peace and let it begin with me” but I tend to shrug the responsibility and leave it in the hands of those who have opinions on how to go about it.
People with opinions are daunting. I agree, before we even argue, so don’t push it in my face, some of them definitely move the world forward and make it a better place to live. To name just few, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Mama Theresa, but just as many, if not more, bring disaster in their wake.
While non commitment can be easily seen as non-caring, plain ignorance or even worse, laziness, I see it as a form of sanity. Someone should be unsure, ask questions, doubt the presentation, and simply refuse to tag along just because without the need to offer an explanation, justification, well versed commentary.
Someone should balance the scale and be the keeper of the equilibrium.
So I’d rather keep my firm opinion on people with opinions and my non-committed disposition about matters of the world; let those with opinions duel each other for their spot in the sun and the history books and I promise to do my best to stay out of their way.
Most of this rushes powerfully along with the enlisted reader in tow and hits its points.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the how the second sentence of graf 6 works in; grafs 7 & 8 seem to me to wander, to repeat, to lose focus or momentum--the piece might work better if they were simply dropped and you moved right into that rhetorically muscular peroration and that amusing last graf.
I'm beginning at last, I think, to get a feeling for your sense of humor, which is very dry indeed, and can see it peeping out in that fine last graf.