~a column by Colleen O’Brien
I like myself best when I’m noble. Or at least when I’m polite.
I can throw a fit when my computer acts up or I drop the coffee grounds on the floor. But at least in public, I pretend I’m a grown-up; or what I was taught a grown-up acted like back in the dark ages of the mid-20th century.
I learned in a psych class that rules of behavior and etiquette were called the social contract. It’s a way to behave to keep the veneer of civility on civilization. We are animals at heart, you know. Well, actually, we’re much worse than animals; they follow their own instincts of survival unless they get distemper. We’re kind of in distemper all the time, not so much for survival but what seems like pure cussedness, thus the need for the social contract.
I’m beginning to think we could use a bit more coaching on how to act like big boys and girls before we’re allowed out in public. Just the other day, I was flipped off while driving on the freeway: I was in the middle lane with a car right on my tail, a car to my right and a car to my left. Finally the right-hand car took an exit and the guy on my rear zoomed around me, flipping me off. This made me feel really awful, getting flipped off by a stranger when I didn’t do anything.
I was totally unaware that it was his road. No wonder he was incensed.
But could he have stuck to the social contract and just driven around me once he had the chance? Sans the finger?
It seems many of my fellow humans are crabby – more so than I’ve noticed through my life. It is only upon reflection that I realize I’ve about had it, because, really, did he honestly think it was his road? Over the winter I’ve had somebody run into my ankles with a grocery cart in the cereal aisle and somebody throw most of a breakfast sandwich out of a window into my face while I was taking my morning walk.
Am I just turning into one of those people who disremembers what it was like when I was younger? Or is it true that we’re awash in road rage and postal behavior and acceptance of bullying in schools as if it’s the norm?
Anne Frank wrote that teaching children “hello, good-by, thank-you and may I” is a basic requirement of parents. I think it should be a rule that we all have to stay off the sidewalks and streets until we can say these simple things without our moms prompting us.
I now seem to inhabit a childish world with the playpen set in charge. A while back, my husband was standing at the four-way stop on the corner of Lincolnway and Hiway 4 in Jefferson when a young girl in a cute little car roared up, squealed to a stop and yelled at the person who had the right of way. “Hurry up, you old b. . ch!”she screamed. Then the young woman raced her engine and slammed around the other car as it moved across the intersection — scary, loud and obscene. Was her house on fire? Was there a rapist chasing her down the highway?
Had she ever been to Calcutta to see how bad life can be?
The idea that we live under a social contract that demands polite behavior, even if it is completely surface, works. Pretending to be nice is often all we need to do. Greasing the skids simply makes life go along with less aggression. Ignoring the modicum of civilized behavior makes for an uncivilized world, and through this door is anarchy; or at least a lot of swearing, horn honking, speeding, finger-gestures . . . guns and knives and bombs and so forth. It’s such a quick and easy escalation unless we reign it in.
We are not easy people to live with, we people. We complain incessantly about the discord in Congress or how the big guys take advantage of the little guys or how the media is so rude these days. And then we act rude, and we are as impatient with strangers as strangers are with us.
But, in case nobody’s noticed, we’re in this together. This is hard to remember? It is not my road or your road, it is our road.
If it were my road, I’d be the only one on it.
So, as rage surfaces around me, I remind myself to be cool; mostly because the voice of my mother still haunts me, reminding me that I could be restricted to the indoors for the rest of my life.
