Political Conversations

Sorry for writing so much about politics. Its been on my mind lately.

I think that everyone knows someone who's intense about a subject, and sometimes you learn that you had better not bring up that subject with them -- really, not at all, but if you must, with appropriate prior preparation. A tranquilizer, for example, and a cleared calendar for the next several hours. Its not that you don't want to consult them on the subject, or even just hear their thoughts; its that engaging them on their pet subject goes pretty quickly toward feeling like you've just locked yourself into a cage, and given them the key. Sometimes, its just the duration, coupled with the intensity; other times, its the complexity of what they throw at you. You want to talk about this marvelous book you found about bread, and the next thing you know, they're jabbing a finger at you, telling you how you simply must use a lame -- and not just any lame, but one made in France -- to serrate the bread. And they go on and on and on, while you're still thinking "lame"? La-may? What the hell is that? But you don't ask, because your casual conversation just became an inquisition/dissertation, and you're not having fun at all.

Maybe not all 'serious' conversations should be fun, but I think that when they're not, you lose something key. In my case, I lose the desire to continue. I just wanted to bat some ideas around, not defend western civilization. When my wife and I used to play racquetball, we came up with a concept that we called 'modified volley rules'. They included things like 'whoever is closer to the ball can hit it', 'you can hit it as many times as you have to' , and 'throwing is okay'. Plus, we didn't keep score. We were just doing it for the fun of it. When we would tell real racquetball players about MVR, they'd look aghast at us. How could we possibly play this way? That wasn't real racquetball, it was just batting a ball around and getting sweaty. Which it was. The thing is, that was all we wanted. Just bat the ball around.

I want political conversations that are the same way. I gather that so far as the politics as she is practiced these days crowd, I'm not only out of the loop, I'm in a different paradigm entirely. But I won't change.

I'll just keep quiet, and mutter occasionally.