Riding home to my London pied-a-terre tonight on the tube I gave up my seat to a woman standing nearby. She looked at me in surprise. ‘No one does that anymore’ she told me, as she sat down. Actually I have seen, of recent, several people offering their seats to others on the New York subway and the Montreal metro. Given events in my own life over the past week I have been thinking long and hard about the importance of decency in daily life, and how the way we treat others so profoundly defines us. To be actively vindictive, to allow ego and fear (they are usually allied) to destroy your relationship with others, to be so obstinate that you cannot even begin to concede that you may have gotten something wrong... I’ve witnessed far too much of this in the course of my life. It is as dispiriting as it is lamentable. Over the years I have decided to impose an ‘asshole rule’ vis-a-vis others. It’s an exceptionally simple rule: if you are an asshole I don’t negotiate with you. I simply turn and walk out of the nearest door. Trust me, this is not a bad ‘modus vivendi’ when it comes to anyone who is unpleasant or veering into the impossible. ‘Where’s the way out of here?’ is, in my experience, the only question to be raised when confronted with someone who want to play the nasty card.
Posted on: Sat, 17 May 2014 00:22:49 +0000
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