Nowadays, a lot of questions have come up hinting at some of the more mundane aspects of our lives: Why does society think differently than me? What makes the government fail so often and so hard? How can we come up with more genders? (I kid.)
But they’re social problems, for social people. It’s pointless. As long as you throw humanity into the equation everything gets needlessly complex, even things that can be so simply put and diverse have to follow a single set of rules made by a specific brand of fragile glass ego.
Conflict has existed- was invented many eons ago, even before our Homo erectus ancestors first laid eyes on a cave neither party could share. It has been “…here before us and, if we’re not careful,…[it’s] gonna’ be here after” to quote one Dr. Ian Malcolm, another who was unfortunately rendered as just an observer of the topical.
Conflict perpetuates here in the Holocene, never designed to end. It is as itself: necessary as a means of sorts but incurable.
What’s worse, people actually use it to debate virtue, bartering their uninformed opinions as wisdom and regarding all motions of the past as outdated thinking. That is where I draw the line.
We cannot leave things as they are. We cannot re-write history into a script we would all like to believe reads: “And we were right all along.” Because we’d never be able to hold ourselves sane ever again. If we lived in a world where we could never be wrong, accountability would cease to exist.
Yes, yes, our rights are at stake and we could be right. But what if we were wrong? What if we’d trampled over the facts, beliefs, and morals of others in the pursuit of one perennial algorithm to goodness: “How to be the best at being a good person” when we could just try and live with a better title, “To be a good person.” That sounds a little more enduring.
However that is represented in whatever culture, mankind has always known its meaning. It’s showing up in your family’s lives and letting them know they matter to you. It’s doing the best you can at work no matter what anyone says and no one sees. It’s standing up for a friend, feeding a stray, keeping your word, walking the talk, or letting someone else win for a change. Whatever it is, dear reader, I know you can only ever add to its meaning.
And I’m not asking you to drop the good fight.
But the next time you feel like debating this or that topic to so and so online, remember it isn’t worth your peace of mind. Channel that drive into some real knowledge-digging and be self-informed. It helps people and makes a difference.
Best of luck!
-circuitstorm
The Typewritten Tales 