Patience and forgiveness

1/23/08

I live in Portland, home to the irrepressibly snarky Portland Mercury, a weekly arts/culture magazine that I infrequently read because I often get the impression that the reviewers are more interested in creating clever bon mots than they are in accurately assessing the music/movies/food they are reviewing. Please note that this is not a complaint---this is my impression, and I solve the problem not by writing to the Mercury to complain about their post-modern POV, but by not reading it very often. This is my method of living a peaceful life: Don't tilt at windmills, just avoid the windmills.

The Merc's snarkiness is magnified in a small feature (and associated blog) called "I Anonymous", where readers can write in anonymously and kvetch about trends in humanity, habits of fellow Portlanders, or whatever they want to bitch about, ranging from what I see as legitimate (Solicitors who knock on a door that says "no solicitors" because they don't understand the meaning of the verb "to solicit") to the completely irrelevant minutia of life (one person complained about people who don't remove the parking decal from the passenger side window of their own car after the car has left the parking spot.)

I use this as an introduction because when I read these postings, I am astonished at the level of bile arising from what seem to me to be minor irritations. There are half a million people in this city, and every one of them was raised with different standards of courtesy; every one of them suffers under the weight of different pressures, different expectations, different distractions. Yet we (yes, I'm one of them) make self-righteous judgments about strangers on a daily basis because we know how a person is supposed to act, and if everyone acted like we do, everything would be smoother, safer, and more fun for everyone.

Well I have news for you---that's not true. You do things every day that annoy your coworkers, that piss off your waitresses, that irritate strangers on the street. Even what you perceive as the good things that you do probably get under another person's skin: Kindly letting a slowpoke into traffic seems like a generous act, but it infuriates the leadfoot in the car behind you.

The key to success in this bizarre Discovery Channel experiment that confines half a million of the same species to a 20-square mile area is living with the other animals, accepting their imperfections and hoping they will accept yours. When we allow our fury to rise over minor events, that fury colors everything we see, leading to a limitless repetition of "and another thing..." addendums. (Of course, in some cases, the fury involves something far more offensive than someone taking too long to put sugar in their coffee at the coffee shop, but the real issue is repressed and the pressure grows to where it requires release, and thus we bore our friends and/or strangers by bitching about the neighbors playing Bob Dylan too much.)

Two things this city, and this world, could use a lot more of it patience and forgiveness. Forgiveness most of all---too many people seem to forget that a grudge does nothing to the person against whom we hold that grudge: They live their life as if it doesn't exist. Yet we cling to these grudges, nurture them, in some cases even cherish them. But don't fool yourself: They are a poison, and they taint the quality of your life. And who do you think is to blame for that---the person who refuses to take down the parking meter sticker?

Think again.