oN iNAPPROPRIATE gROUPINGS

There is an enormous amount of information and experience that is impossible for any one person to contain. For those of us still open to learning new things, we have adapted to this idea by learning through extension. In the universal effort to connect with others (this, of course, does not apply to the non-sociable among us), we have made a habit of grouping things in our lives with things outside of our lives to make bridges of understanding and comprehension between ourselves and everyone else. This habit does not always work smoothly and can sometimes lead to the use of a false tool: the inappropriate grouping.

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The inappropriate grouping is the juxtaposition of two things that are normally not placed side by side. One can usually see the comparison on a logical level, but the grouping doesn’t work in a social context.

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Before going into why an inappropriate grouping doesn’t work conversationally, I want to mention the normalcy of a correct grouping for contrast. If a person mentions that he went snowboarding this weekend, I might mention that I like to ski because the two sports are commonly associated winter sports. Even if I don’t snowboard, I can imagine by extension some of the same excitement that that person experienced on the mountain. Furthermore, the snowboarder can imagine that a skier would understand, which in turn helps make the interaction mutually enjoyable.

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An inappropriate grouping on the other hand can make the intended audience feel a little uncomfortable. Imagine someone tells me that she has cancer and will have to go through the subsequent chemo/radiation/surgery routine to make it better. Imagine further that I say, “I understand. My dog got cancer, and it was really hard on him.” Aside from the lack of compassion, which because of the extremity of the example might do the most harm, I would be guilty of using an inappropriate grouping, the comparison of a dog to a person. Logically, there’s no reason to believe that one would be different from the other. Socially, however, one can expect his audience not to enjoy being compared to a dog.

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Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate, complained of being the victim of inappropriate groupings. People, in an attempt to make conversation and try to understand what it is that he did, would tell him that their children liked to write poetry. This angered Billy Collins. His retort to these people was something like this: “It would be like me finding out that you were a banker, and then saying that my kid liked playing with change.” The inappropriate grouping in both cases is made between a professional and a kid dabbling in the same. A professional does not want to be compared to a rookie and further does not want to be compared to a child who couldn’t even rightly qualify as a rookie.

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Inappropriate groupings immediately terminate any sense that two people are sharing a moment of mutual comprehension. “I’ve got a wife, kids, friends, people who count on me to be around, and you just compared me to your dog?” If an issue is sensitive enough, there’s no recovery from an inappropriate grouping about that particular thing. Emotions and pride get wrapped around certain aspects of a person’s life. An inappropriate grouping can be construed as an attack on or insult to those things held dear. “I didn’t write poetry for twenty years just to be compared to a kid.”

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If you are the perpetrator of an inappropriate grouping, you might practice thinking a bit more and talking a bit less. Once you’ve said something, it’s hard to unsay it. Groupings you make mentally and to yourself are never inappropriate and can help you understand a very large and complicated world. If you are the victim of an inappropriate grouping, you have two options at your disposal: confrontation or get-over-it-ation. I suggest the former for close friends and family and the latter for everyone else.

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It’s a hard enough world understanding one person’s life, let alone a few billion.

oN pAPER tOWELS

On a small sign taped to my middle school art room paper towel dispenser was this message: WHY TAKE TWO WHEN ONE WILL DO? Apparently, the school admin was a little stingy with paper towels and the janitor just a tad too slow on the refills. In addition, my art teacher liked to discourage excess and thus created the sign. Still, I suspect that part of the reason for the classroom conservation was the trash can clutter.

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When I say ‘trash can clutter,’ I am referring to refuse around indoor trash cans, most often in restaurant and retail bathrooms. In an ideal world, garbage would leave a person’s hand and enter the receptacle, perhaps even with a congratulatory beep signifying a hard-earned two points. Given that garbage cans are placed conveniently within a few feet of their counterpart paper towel dispensers, it is a shock that a certain percentage of them never arrive. By the time I come around, the garbage is strewn about the can, as if disposal by approximation does the trick.

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At what point did it become ok to take a step back and assume the role of Cro-magnon man? Are people going to start hunting their neighbors’ cats? Perhaps it’s time we resurrect our ancient ape language which utilized farts as verb modifiers?

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There are two kinds of Cro-magnon patrons: 1) the kind that misses the can and refuses to correct him/herself and 2) the kind that recognizes such acts, abhors it, yet does nothing about it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just about everybody.

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This is one problem that’s not going away any time soon. As long as it’s someone else’s job to pick up the garbage, we have a society-endorsed blank check to be as messy as we want.

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Perhaps the process of throwing away our dirty paper towels could be made easier. After all, some genius invented the hand dryer as well as the cloth towel that makes laps within the dispenser. But ultimately, they tried and failed. We Americans just love our paper towels. Sure, some places have the problem taken care of, but these measures do little to address the real problem, that deep-seated human urge to be royally disgusting.

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Okay, so paper towels on the ground is a far cry from the “royally” modifier. But where does it end? I heard about a small food parlor that had a couple of teenage girls who had locked themselves in the bathroom for thirty minutes. The girls were giggling and making noises and aside from occupying the bathroom for so long were being generally disruptive. Other customers complained, and they were finally asked to leave by an angry manager. The girls skipped out of the bathroom, laughing, and ran out of the store. A quick peek into the W.C. revealed what the girls had been up to during that unfortunate half hour. They had wiped feces over all six sides of the bathroom. This was an extreme case, yes, but you get the idea.

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Perhaps the real problem is a lack of ownership. It’s not mine, so what does it matter? This is a difficult belief to challenge because given a certain point of view it’s entirely accurate. What does it really matter if I leave this paper towel on the counter or directly in the can if someone else is going to do it anyway? But these are the final defenses of someone trying to prove his or her point of view to someone else trying to impose his or her point of view.

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And therein lies the magic of my old art teacher’s sign. It questioned you without judging you. It asked you to consider something about your environment, both in the classroom and the world at large, and to wrap your mind around your participation in that space. That little couplet challenged the notion that you are not responsible, that we are not responsible.

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In short, it reminded you that you are not alone.

oN "mOST pEOPLE"

There’s a disturbing trend among American conversations (perhaps among other cultures as well) that is undermining how we understand and communicate information with one another. It pops up daily without warning in many conversations, my own included (though I’m quick to correct myself), and is a terrible crutch on which to lean. I’m referring to the use of a supporting statement that begins with the impossible-to-know phrase “Most people…”

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“Most people…” is used at the start of a personal opinion to justify said opinion within the context of a discussion or argument. It can also take the form of “Not very many people…” or even the meaningless “Some people…” Because such a statement is inherently sweeping and grandiose and requires experience and knowledge impossible to obtain, one may deduce that it is sheer crème de la crap, the main pile of crap being the feeble opinion on which such a defense usually rests.

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For example, take the sentence “Most people prefer to settle down in one place.” There is a general vagueness on several levels. Poor people without mobility (think New Orleans post-Katrina) have no choice but to stay put, so could settling down by necessity ever be considered a preference? Rich people (think John McCain) have the capacity to own several homes, so with a varied yearly itinerary that could consist of several destinations, is this considered settled down? Of the younger people I’ve met, there’s a considerable amount of movement between cities and states, so does “most people” refer to those individuals after a certain age, married or coupled, children or not?

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The people who use these kinds of statements and stand by them don’t take these issues into account. By slapping on “most people…” to an opinion, a neat, seemingly self-evident, faux explanation is given of a potentially complex issue.

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A personal truth can be a lot simpler than all of this hullabaloo. For example, watch the complexity fade away with the following: “Liz and I would prefer to settle down in one place.” The speaker and Liz are experts about their own lives and can comment easily as such.

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But sometimes there is no personal truth buried within a “most people…” statement. Sometimes, advice or judgment is woven within to exert a certain amount of pressure on the audience. The advice “You should settle down” is not an easy one to digest for someone who enjoys a fluid, mobile lifestyle, but it is direct, its meaning understood as well as its speaker (the person who stands behind such advice). The moment that it is disguised as “Most people prefer to settle down” is just about time a person might want to consider bailing on the conversation.

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So why do people say such things in the first place? For one, it’s easy. Who would want to place a conversation on hold every time a questionable statement came up that might require research? But more than that, it’s just easier to believe in our own appraisal of the world at large. For example, I go through this world with the assumption that most chairs work. I don’t want to waste my time checking the structure of every chair I sit in. If I questioned all of my perceptions of the world every time one became relevant to the moment at hand, I would cease to function in this world as a normal human being. There’s simply too much to fact-check.

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Still, it’s better to speak plainly, given the choice. There’s enough ambiguity in this world as it is, in our actions, our glances, our body language, that if we can simplify our language and meaning, I for one believe we’d be better off for it. I don't mean most people either. I mean all of us.

oN aPOLOGIES

I have recently been in two arguments which followed an all-too-familiar pattern. I disliked being treated a certain way, spoke up about it, and POOF! instant fight. These particular discussions, though miles apart in seriousness and resolution, shared one common argumentative tool: the false apology.

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No one likes being told that their actions, once considered perfect by them, could have possibly offended the sensibilities of another person. Yet here I am, an offended individual, telling them exactly that. When confronted with this perplexing phenomenon, people tend to reach back to the one time and place during which they got away with all kinds of infuriating behavior: childhood. They stumble backward through this period of time, blindly grabbing at any useful phrase, any comparable situation, and eventually find the one unbeatable, non-stoppable, guaranteed Get out of Jail Free card, the phrase “I’m sorry.”

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But times have changed. They’re grown up now. They don’t say simple phrases like “I’m sorry” anymore. Nope. Everything has changed because these people have entered adulthood and plan on staying. And what, pray tell, is their contribution? The false apology.

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I’m not talking about a person who gives an apology that he or she does not believe in. False apologies (and there are many, many variations) sound like this: “Oh, I’m sorry it bothered you” or “You got offended. I’m sorry about that” or “I’m really sorry you’re upset.” These are not apologies. They offer no accountability and basically just sound good. These phony apologies follow the pattern of a condolence at a funeral: “I’m so sorry your mother passed away.” No one is saying that they are personally at fault for killing the mother in question; it’s an acknowledgment of the obvious. Nor are the above “apologetic” speakers taking any responsibility for upsetting you; they are simply reiterating what is already known.

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Remark the difference between these phrases below and their limp-handshake counterparts: “I’m sorry I bothered you” or “I offended you. I’m sorry” or “I’m really sorry I upset you.” People using real apologies stand up and allow themselves to be accountable for their actions and words. People using phony apologies always blame something else, sometimes you yourself, and offer what amounts to a poor sympathy substitute.

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Unfortunately, these kind of pathetic excuses for apologies are used all the time. What’s more, a fight is usually the last conversational place you want to confront this kind of flagrant non-apology. What then is a sane person to do?

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In a nutshell, suck it up. Unless the person is your significant other or plays a role in your life fairly regularly, you have no real reason to duke it out with every Jack and Jill out there who subscribe to the No Apologies R Us catalogue. Usually just trying to resolve the actual problem, and not the phony apology that plays a role in the problem’s aftermath, is hard enough.

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I tried once to tell my father the kind of apology that would resonate with me. After saying something upsetting and receiving my subsequent response, he gave the usual “I’m sorry you feel that way” line, which you already know is a waste of my time. I told him that “I’m sorry I upset you” would make me feel better, and he refused. Too much accountability for him, I guess.

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To all the people who use false apologies: you do yourself a disservice by not taking responsibility for your actions and words. You can potentially deepen a hurt by giving a fake apology. Giving real apologies, regardless if you receive them, is eye-opening, liberating, and soul-fixing. If you are in a verbal fight, you can cut down the cage match by half the time with a real apology. The phrase which usually begins with “I’m sorry I…” attracts the attention of the other person or persons and can usually curb an otherwise hazardous exchange. Furthermore, it becomes easier to see how you have contributed to a situation and can help eventually to pinpoint a root cause.

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False apologies do serve a purpose, though. They are an acknowledgment of an issue and in conjunction with an actual apology can do a world of good. Imagine the following: “I’m sorry you’re angry, and I’m really sorry I upset you.” The meaning of the first half contains a decent assessment, but should you say only the first half, you have to avoid believing that you are comforting and apologizing to someone. With both halves together, however, there is a full evaluation and apology of the situation. It’s a home run of an apology and an excellent start to making amends.

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The false apology, while ever-present in society, does not have to exist in your world. Own your words and actions and don’t be afraid to make a real apology. After all, at the end of the day, the person you’re ultimately comforting is yourself.