November
14, 2016
Greetings
from your mark,
One
of the beauties of life is the conversation that flows back and forth between
people who are interested in sharing and hearing perspectives. Inherent in these exchanges I have realized
are elements of trust, respect, and a willingness to risk.
But
just lately too many conversations I hear are not an exchange of anything. It is part of the life, of course. Some subjects leave no room for compromise, it
seems, no place for alternatives, and we want to convince others of our way of
thinking. But even in debate there is margin
for an exchange, a space for differences to be placed side by side. But I hear a lot of conversations that are not
conversations. They are layers of
monologues.
And
yes, many of these monologues are mine.
Everyone
has played Tic Tac Toe. One person fills
in a box then the other. One X, then
O. If you get three in a row you
win. You put in your mark. I put in mine. Back and forth, each of us
branding the box until someone wins or no one does.
I
have read that the more expert the players are the more likely that the game
ends in a tie. There is no winner, they
just fill the boxes. It is a zero sum
game. It is an exercise in calligraphy.
And
this is what I have been witnessing. Tic
Tac Toe conversations. Some people come
to the conversation with all of their boxes filled in. “Here is how it is. I win.”
Or they start by filling in all of your boxes. “You obviously feel this way. I don’t need to hear your perspective.”
But
more often it is the back and forth, without crossing through lines, just fill
in my mark, fill in yours, try to strategize so that the other person has to
concede. And if both are really good in
the strategy, there is no winner. Just
more letters sacrificed.
In
Tic Tac Toe we are limited to what we can put in our box. We are an X or an O. (Right now some of you are thinking of what
your favorite is.) The rules of the game
say we must remain X or O, and defend our space with our mark until the game is
over.
But
it Tic Tac Toe is a simple game and we are better than that. We are not just X or O or any one
element. We are humans capable of
imagination and empathy and complex ideas, including examining the complex
ideas we have not considered. When we
are at our best we are curious, questioning, learning.
Look
at children, sometimes the truest representative of our best nature. Yes, they can be selfish and petulant and
ignorant. But their nature is to
explore, to learn what the world has to offer, what people have to offer. It is how they grow.
But
we adopt ideas and positions and after a long time of this we label
ourselves. We are ‘O’. We agree with other people who are ‘O’, and
that is the truth. But in fact, if some
authority came to you and said you that you must always mark your box with an ‘O’
you would rebel. “I cannot be defined by
a letter. I am more complex than
that. I am the sum of a lifetime of
experiences. Within me is the potential
to be an infinite string of letters.”
We
are more than just X or O. We are not
merely a certain religious denomination or an ethnicity. We are not only a political party or an
alumnus of a school. We are not just
citizens under a flag. We may be all of
those things and many more, but that’s not all we are capable of.
This
essay is not an idealist’s plea for peace.
I am not suggesting that beliefs be set aside or positions be
abandoned. I am saying we are better
than just trading monologues so we can go back to the others of our tribe and
say we defended ‘O’ with pride. We are strong enough to take the risk required
to actually listen to others, and to be able to share our thoughts without
justifying them only by victory.
Nine
boxes cannot contain all we have to say, or all we have to learn.
Hope
this finds you outside the box,
David
Copyright
© 2016 David Smith
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