Do I dare disturb the universe?

you're young right now -- say, in your teens or early twenties -- I'm going to make both a guess and a prediction about you.

First, my guess: you probably think that people from any generation older than yours are hopelessly, embarrassingly biased or prejudiced in some way, and their unthinking comments regularly make you cringe.

I know this feeling well. My paternal grandma was an old-fashioned overt racist. Thanks to my mother's stern warnings, Grandma wasn't allowed to use the N-word in our presence, though I'm sure she did it regularly when we weren't around. She'd pass a mixed-race couple holding hands in public and start muttering angrily about how "they think they're so smart, getting right in our faces with it," or she'd see a couple of little boys joyously bouncing on an old mattress in the front yard and talk about how "those people" were bringing neighborhood property values down with their dirty ways, their lack of discipline. Grandma wasn't particularly cruel by nature; her racist behavior had much to do with the time and place in which she was raised, where nearly everyone had a reflexive belief in white superiority.

That brings me to my prediction: in 20 years or so, some of the things you think, believe or say right now -- things you probably don't even think about -- will be considered unacceptably biased or prejudiced to generations younger than you.

Don't think it won't happen. It will.

(When I was a teenager, I didn't think I lived in a time of prejudice. But I grew up in the '80s, when people casually joked about AIDS, when it was possible to use a pejorative like "faggot" in casual conversation and not be called out by anyone, when my brothers routinely played a ball game called "Smear the Queer," and -- this is the part of my teenhood of which I'm most ashamed -- when I nearly drove a close friend to suicide by coldly rejecting him after he gathered all his courage and came out to me. You tell me if things have changed since then.)

My parents taught me to be different from my grandma. I was raised to believe that when it came to people, content of character, not color of skin, was key. I didn't think I was racist, because I wasn't like the people I knew who openly hated people of other races.

But racism is different now.

It's not about open hatred or the use of the N-word, although those elements still exist in our culture. It's not about assuming the superiority of one race over another, or about futilely trying to separate races into apartheid societies. Instead, it's about being able to separate oneself in a more subtle and pernicious way.

It's about watching the news or seeing a trending topic about yet another person getting shot by the police, brutally manhandled to the point of death, or otherwise mistreated and abused by people in authority, and letting pass the subliminal whisper of a thought: "Thank heavens that doesn't affect me." It's about opting to change the channel or click on something more cheerful and pleasant, and not having to lie awake thinking about it all night, not replaying the footage over and over in one's mind, not having to live with the gnawing thought: "That could have been my child/parent/sweetheart/relative/friend/co-worker."

That's racism now. It's taking the path of least resistance when bad things happen to people who don't look or live like you. It's choosing to remain as separated from the plight of one's fellow citizens as one might be from the plight of total strangers in a faraway land one has never seen. It's deciding to tsk instead of act. It's passively choosing not to right the wrongs that exist in a nation that, despite the soaring principles of its founding documents, does not consistently offer equal freedoms, equal access, equality of opportunity, or equality under the law to all its citizens.

And under this definition, despite the things I was taught, sometimes I am a racist. Because it's so much easier. It's easier not to have to engage against injustices that don't directly affect me. I've never had to worry about a police officer shoving a loaded gun in my face, never had to worry about being pulled over for a burned-out headlight because I've only ever received a friendly warning and been sent on my way, never been wrestled to the ground and dragged out of the room because I was sassy to a teacher; it's hard for me even to imagine what it's like to experience these things. It's easier not to imagine, to turn away, to change the subject. Disturbing the universe isn't the proper life work of an introvert, anyway. (Unless it is.)

Here's the thing, though. It may be easier to do nothing in the short run, but I don't think I can stand idly by and watch as others struggle with systemic unfairness, for the most selfish of reasons: because I love my country. Not in the sense of "my country, right or wrong," but in the sense that my country was designed to be good, and I want it to be good. If things continue as they are now -- if one set of Americans has its rights and privileges safeguarded, while another set routinely has those same rights trampled on -- then sooner or later the people of the trampled rights will finally get fed up. If there are enough people who reach that boiling point, they will turn and overthrow the people and organizations that have failed to vouchsafe their rights for so long. And then there will no longer even be the hope of a nation with liberty and justice for all -- nothing but tangled, broken ruins that were once a city on a hill.

So, do I dare disturb the universe? Or do I find out instead what horrors happen if I don't?

Although I don't know a clear way forward from here -- it's surprising how much of adulthood involves stumbling through the dark, however hopefully -- I know I must act to safeguard the rights of all my fellow citizens, to re-teach myself to respond to wrongs instead of ignoring them. Because I want my niece's future children to grow up in a society that's become better, kinder, more honest champions of the things we claim to believe in as Americans.

More to the point, I want there to still be an America for them to grow up in.

Is it I?

Now when the even was come, [Jesus] sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, "Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me."
And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, "Lord, is it I?"

--Matthew 26:20-22

The quote above comes from an important point in the life of Jesus Christ. He and his apostles are sitting down to celebrate Passover, and although the others do not yet know it, Jesus is aware that this is the last meal he will ever eat in his mortal life (thus the term "Last Supper"). When he drops a bombshell on his dearest friends, their response shows they have learned a key principle from him. Rather than casting aspersions on any of the others (i.e., "Yeah, bet it's Judas; he's been acting squirrely lately"), each man asks himself, "Could I possibly be the one to do this thing?"

Brutally honest self-examination is just as difficult to accomplish now as it was 2000-odd years ago. We know in theory that we're imperfect human beings with negative traits and personal shortcomings, but most of the time we overlook these shortcomings because it's painful to scrutinize our own souls for faults, and it's troublesome to overcome such faults. It's far easier and much less painful to point out the faults in other people. Trouble is, this is precisely what we've been asked not to do.

In 2014 I picked up a book with the slightly amusing title of Thank You For Being Such A Pain, in which the author discusses the myriad spiritual pathways to deal constructively with the difficult people in one's life. One of his overarching theories about such people is that, whether or not they are aware of it, they come into our lives to teach us something important. Quite often, the people who make us crazy illustrate those faults and weaknesses we try to hide from ourselves -- because, human nature being what it is, the traits we find most irritating in others are usually identical to our own shortcomings. It wasn't the first time I'd been introduced to this theory, but now that it's had a chance to sink in, I'm seeing some of the many ways in which it applies to me.

So, practically speaking, how does this theory apply to my life right now? Well, I guess I need to work on getting rid of bigotry and needless intolerance of others in my thoughts and behavior. I need to be willing to listen to different viewpoints and seek to understand why others hold them dear. I need to learn to respect other people's time, recognize when I am monopolizing it, and back off. I need to learn to show affection in appropriate ways. I need to curtail my tendency to talk too much and too loudly. I need to learn not to be prickly when people are only trying to be kind. And I need to apologize quickly and honestly when I slip up and hurt other people's feelings.

That ought to be enough to keep anyone busy for a while, right?

Respecting single people's time

(This piece has been sitting on the back burner for some time, but a comment I read today reminded me that it was long overdue.)

My sister Jenny teaches sixth grade, and she's very good at her job. Not only does she spend hours of time on her class during the school day, but she also expends many hours before and after school preparing lessons, grading papers and otherwise doing whatever she can to provide an excellent education to a hormonally-charged and squirmy group of tweens. After work, she has a place of her own with its attendant responsibilities, bills to pay, meals to cook and functions to attend. In other words, like most professional working adults, she has a full and busy schedule.

But Jenny also has to deal with a frequent social irritant. Some of her friends -- unfortunately, it seems most common among those who are married with children -- often contact her at the last minute, asking her to drop everything and do something with them. Their justification for this behavior? Well, she's single, so she must have loads of free time, right?

Uh, no.

Jenny's experience is far from unusual. A number of other friends and acquaintances -- including Linda, a graphic designer who runs marathons, participates in long-distance bike races and operates a major fansite in her spare time, and Rebecca, a professional singer who currently works two jobs to make ends meet -- have publicly expressed frustration over this same recurring social irritant. Their bosses, co-workers and friends repeatedly assume they have gobs of time to attend social functions, work extra hours and take on additional projects, simply because they're single. To put it bluntly, in Western society most married or partnered people show little respect for single people's time.

This is a social blind spot, and I suspect I know where it might originate. For many adults, the last time they were single was in high school or college, when they had relatively few responsibilities and far more free time. If they don't stop to consider, they may fall into the reflexive belief that single adults have the same kind of open schedules they once enjoyed in their student years. But this simply isn't so. Single working adults have as many responsibilities as couples do -- with the added stress of making do on one income, single-handedly running their own errands, cooking their own meals, taking care of their own finances and doing all the household chores, since they don't have the luxury of delegating these responsibilities to a partner. They are not footloose and fancy-free teenagers -- they are working people, and they are staggeringly busy. When you operate on the thoughtless assumption that they can just clear their schedules at the drop of a hat, you are strongly suggesting that you do not acknowledge their status as full-fledged grownups. That stings. And the more often you do it, the more emotional corrosion it causes to your relationship.

I'm far from free of blame in this regard. On many past occasions, I blithely assumed my sister would be free to do something without taking the time to consult her first. Now that I see what a bonehead I was, I've been making a greater effort to be as respectful of Jenny's busy schedule as she is of mine. But it isn't really that difficult to make the necessary mental adjustment, to recognize and respect the time of friends and acquaintances, whether they're singles or couples. It just requires a few minutes of your own time to stop and think about it -- and to change your behavior accordingly.

(By the way, if I've ever disrespected your time, my sincerest apologies. I know I can do better.)

Impulsive introversion

In third grade, I was a little runt. Truly. You wouldn't believe it to look at me now, but back then I was young for my grade, short and thin. These qualities sometimes got me in trouble. One day in early fall, just after recess, our class was lined up outside the third grade room waiting for Mrs. Epperson to come back from lunch, and one of the girls standing beside me decided to show everyone else just how small I was.

"I bet I could pick you up," she said.

"Don't do that," I said. I wasn't comfortable with being picked up by acquaintances.

Unfazed, my classmate bent over, grabbed me around the waist and lifted me high in the air. And I still don't know why I did what I did next, because as she held me up I instinctively leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

"Eww!" she shrieked, and immediately put me down. The other kids laughed and a few taunted me for liking other girls. Me, I was busy being dismayed. Wait, what just happened? What was I thinking?

"Why'd you kiss her?" my friend behind me asked. "That was gross."

I had to think fast. "Well, it made her put me down, didn't it?" I reasoned. "I told her not to pick me up."

This was a good enough explanation for a class of third graders, and nobody in my class tried to pick me up again. But long after everyone else had forgotten the incident, I continued to relive the experience over and over in my head, continually mortified at the kiss that seemed to come out of nowhere and the way the other kids had mocked me for it.

That same year I was playing at a friend's house and spontaneously decided we should be wilderness explorers. I led her up to the end of her street and down a steep hill into the city's nature park. We wandered around for hours, running across bridges, exploring creeks, skinning our knees and generally having a great old time together until her parents showed up. They'd been frantically looking for us for a long while, since we hadn't bothered to tell anyone where we were going. Her dad was a large, curly-haired man with a bull-like head, and by the time they found us his face had gone a dark red, his nostrils flaring white and his eyes narrowed to slits. I honestly thought for a minute that he was going to lower his head and charge at me. For weeks afterward I was afraid of going anywhere near him at our church meetings, thinking again and again of that fierce, glowing face staring me down.

A few years and a new school later, I bought a school lunch and got some change back from the purchase. The sound of the coins jingling in my pocket annoyed me for some obscure reason, and to get rid of the noise and the bother of carrying money around I just started handing out coins to people at recess. I hadn't been popular that year, and one of the other girls started running around telling people I was trying to buy some friends. Angry at her comments, I kicked a hole in the dirt of the exercise field and buried the rest of my coins. What were you thinking? my brain continued to ask me, long after it was over. Why couldn't you just leave the coins where they were?

I could provide so many more illustrations, because the hits just kept on a-comin', all through junior high and high school and right into college. I did all sorts of stupid, capricious things without thinking them through, and then repeatedly relived the shame and embarrassment of having done them. Why did you say that? Why couldn't you just keep your mouth shut? What made you think kissing him would be a good idea? Don't you ever think of the consequences?

Frankly, impulsivity and introversion are a match made in hell. If you're an impulsive extravert, you can probably blithely shrug off your less-than-ideal choices. If you're a sensible introvert, you probably weigh the potential consequences of your actions a long time before deciding to act. But if you're both impulsive and introverted, you tend to act without thinking and then compulsively mentally replay the consequences of your poor decision-making, like a one-tune iPod set on endless repeat.

It can get to a point where even if you make a fairly innocuous impulsive decision, you start second-guessing yourself. Last week I attended a stitch-&-bitch-style gathering for knitters and crocheters in the back room of a local craft store. One of the regular attendees had generously brought a batch of her homemade fudge to share with everyone. As I sat there knitting away, I saw one of the craft store employees working alone out front and it suddenly occurred to me that it might be friendly to offer him some fudge too, so I impulsively put several pieces of fudge into some brown paper and carried them out to the desk. Even before I sat back down, my introvert brain was already cranking into overdrive: Wouldn't it have made more sense to check and see if the guy was diabetic first? What if he doesn't like fudge? Did you even think to ask the lady who brought the fudge whether it would be OK to share it with someone? Do you even think at all? What is the matter with you? Fortunately I've learned the handy art of telling my brain to shut up and think of something else instead, but it did come back for a few honorable mentions. And yet I don't think anyone was harmed by that particular impulsive choice. It's just that I've gotten so used to having my snap decisions backfire on me that my brain automatically starts berating me for my stupidity, even if the decision wasn't really all that stupid.

Honestly, these days I do try to think things through. I try to imagine the potential real-world consequences for my actions. I try not to open my mouth before I've considered the possible ways that an offhand comment could be incorrectly parsed. But I still end up putting myself into trouble now and then, saying and doing things that make me want to kick myself later. I'm sure I'm not alone, though. There have got to be at least a few people out there who are also impulsive introverts, getting tired of the taste of their own shoe leather. I wonder if they've learned to cope with it, how they silence the verbally abusive parts of their brains, what tricks they've discovered that keep them from speaking without thinking. Because I could sure use some help in that department.

How big an idiot am I?

Pretty big, apparently.

See, today is election day in the county where we reside. Since the whole county now operates on a vote-by-mail method (don't get me started on this... seriously, the ranting could go on for weeks), the county mails out a handy voters' pamphlet and its distinctive green-and-white ballots for each registered voter in the household a few weeks before the deadline. Registered voters may therefore drop off their votes at any time between the moment the ballots hit their mailboxes and 7:59 p.m. tonight.

So I perused the voters' pamphlet, made my decisions and marked my ballot. I sealed it up in the white security envelope, slipped it into the green-and-white outer envelope, signed and dated the outside. All good. I stayed up very late writing (as is my wont), and around 2 a.m. I decided that since I was awake anyway, I'd just drop off my ballot at the City Hall drop box and have one less thing to do in the morning. So I grabbed the green-and-white envelope off the sofa, hopped into the car, waited briefly in line (yes, I've discovered I live in a city partially populated by vampires) and slid the envelope into the drop box. And off I went on my merry way, thinking no harm.

A few minutes ago I reminded Captain Midnight that he still needed to vote, and he agreed that he'd do it when he got home. Thinking to make things easier for him, I turned to the couch to retrieve the pamphlet and his ballot -- and you're probably way ahead of me by now.

There, on the sofa, lay the completed ballot. Sealed in its green-and-white envelope, with my signature and the date on the back, all ready to be dropped off.

In my misguided urge for efficiency, I'd grabbed the wrong envelope. (In my defense, the envelope the county uses to mail ballots and the envelope used to seal completed ballots look very similar to each other, especially when it's very early in the morning and you're barely glancing at them.) So unless they've retrieved it, Captain Midnight's unopened, unmarked ballot is currently sitting in the drop box at City Hall.

I'm trying to determine what course of action Miss Manners would suggest under these circumstances. Should I call the cops and report my own accidental voter fraud, or is it proper for me to allow Captain Midnight the satisfaction of calling them to clap me in irons instead?

*facepalm*

Do you ever do dumb stuff?

do. I think I've inadvertently done something which may have ended up hurting a friend. Why do I do these things? (Thanks to all those who helpfully answered, "Because you're a dork, Sooz." Yes, I'm aware of that.)

I don't have many friends, in part because I don't have good friend-making skills. There's a story behind this lack, of course. When I was in middle school, a new family with many children moved into our neighborhood. They had a girl my age, and I was thrilled at the thought that perhaps she and I could be friends. I came to her home, introduced myself, showed her around the neighborhood and took her to visit my home, lent her my favorite books -- in short, everything I could think of to make her feel comfortable. At the end of all this, she turned to me and said, without a trace of rancor, "You know, Sooz, I just don't think I like you." And she walked home alone.

From that point on, I made very little effort to acquire or cultivate friendships, feeling it wasn't worth the danger of rejection. Even as an adult, it's difficult for me to go beyond polite cordiality with strangers. Generally speaking, the people I've known who have been my closest friends are those who chose to approach me first, who decided to make the effort themselves. For this reason, the friends I do have are of great worth to me and I don't want to hurt or alienate them, either with thoughtless words or stupid actions. And believe me, I seem to have a facility for doing both.

There's no need to be more specific, but if you're a friend of mine and I've said or done anything to cause you hurt or offense, I am sincerely sorry and I hope you'll give me another chance.