Sunday, August 19, 2012

The Middle Ground. Where Did it Go?

I am not sure if all of you know but a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. Mainly, I got married. Wait a minute...let me retype that in a manner that better represents how I feel about this: HOLY MOTHER OF GOD...I JUST FUCKING GOT MARRIED...LIKE WITH A REAL GIRL AND EVERYTHING...IT'S LIKE HAVING A PERSON ATTACHED TO ME AT ALL TIMES...HOLY SHIT I HAVE A WIFE NOW...HOW THE HELL CAN THAT HAPPEN? I AM STILL A CHILD! I AM WAY TOO IMMATURE FOR THIS... AREN'T THERE LAWS TO MAKE SURE THIS KIND OF THING DOESNT HAPPEN??? HOLY SHIT I AM FREAKING MARRIED!!!

[After a few minutes of blankly staring at the wall contemplating on what the hell has just happened to me in the last few days...] Ok! I am back. So as I was saying...a lot has happened. Besides the wedding, I took three weeks off work...saw and hung out with lot of family and friends-some of whom I haven't seen in years, went on a vacation of a lifetime, had a major health concern with a close family member, and had another family member who just had two twin girls. It was a pretty eventful couple of weeks for sure. But the point is that it provided me with some awesome material for the blog (not that I needed it). Unfortunately, I was so busy, so I didn't even get a chance to look at my blog's stats let alone actually write something. But now I have some free time...so here it goes. 

Do you ever catch yourself saying or thinking, "Whatever happened to...?" Usually when people say this, they refer to something or someone in the past that is no longer in use or seen today. Like VHS tapes, Thrifty ice cream, or the kid from Home Alone. But lately I have been saying more and more of this to myself...and usually referring to CONCEPTS! Things like chivalry, honesty, integrity, good work ethic, etc. So I decided to write about one of those "Whatever happened to..." things. I am sure you all know what the endangered species list is. Well...think of this as an endangered concept. This idea is no longer existent or is very close to being wiped out. It is the idea of the Middle Ground. So here we go...

Have you been following the news lately? Almost every single issue/story/event is analyzed in terms of the very extreme sides of the spectrum. Here are some examples.

1. President Obama is looked at as either the second coming of Jesus Christ by the liberals or a commy socialist by the conservatives. He is somewhere in the middle.

2. Ravi Dharun, the Indian kid who videotaped his gay roommate who later committed suicide is either a homophobic bully who committed murder or a victim of the media's overreacting agenda. People choose to ignore the fact that the kid who committed suicide suffered from many psychological and depression issues long before he met Ravi. He had a family who wasn't totally accepting of his homosexuality. Ravi had actually sent text messages to the kid apologizing for some of the hateful acts he had done. Is he still at fault? Yes. But his true guiltiness is somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.  

3. Gun violence is entirely the fault of pro-gun laws or entirely the fault of people. People either want to completely outlaw guns, or completely allow them. I am sure there is some middle ground that can be found on this issue, like banning assault weapons and/or having stricter background checks and some sort of continual system of checking or testing those that want to buy guns...or something!

When the hell did society become like this? In all of those issues above, the TRUTH is probably somewhere in the middle. I am still pretty young so I am not entirely sure but wasn't there more middle ground back in the day? I do seem to recall in my high school history class the concept of compromise used to come up a lot. When is the last time someone considered the concept of compromise as a first-line resort rather than a last ditch effort? When is the last time Democrats and Republicans actually put the issue ahead of their party interests? One of my lifelong missions in life is to reintroduce this middle ground approach to the world. Any time myself or someone close to me has a problem, I am always going to consider compromise and the middle ground as an option. And believe me, the problems will come. (Read the first paragraph if you want to know why the problems will come...)

Speaking of which, one perfect little example of this already occurred in my young and short marriage life. On the second day after my wedding, my wife and I were planning on going to Universal Studios. Before we left, she asked me if I can show her how to use the washing machine after we come back so she could do laundry. Now, if you know me, you know that I don't know the first thing about how to use the washing machine in my house. So I told her I didn't know how to use it, and she decided she will figure it out later. Now here is the problem that I envisioned in my head after I had this conversation with my wife: Since we were leaving for the entire day, my mom would be home and she would see the dirty clothes in our room and maybe...just maybe...she might have a thought like "Oh, my son's wife didn't think to do anything about this laundry." (I am not saying she had this thought but she COULD have.) And this wouldn't be fair to my wife because she actually DID have the thought. So what should I do?

If you were to solve this problem according to what society does nowadays, which is ignore the middle ground, you would either do one of two things: 1. Leave the laundry and risk making a bad impression about your wife to your mother or 2. Figure out the laundry before leaving the house and be late for Universal Studios and push everything back for the entire day.

Fortunately, there is such a thing as middle ground. The solution might seem very simple to many of you. It may be so obvious that you might think reading this was a waste of time. But you would be surprised how sometimes the most obvious and simple solutions are often ignored...leading to things like failed marriages. The solution was...I told my wife to ask my mom how to work the washing machine before we left. This accomplishes a very important thing. It looks good to my mom that my wife is taking the initiative. Secondly, my mom knows we have to go to Universal Studios so she will undoubtedly say something like, "Don't worry about it because you guys have to leave so I will show you after you guys come back." So it's not DOING the laundry that's important right now, it's about SHOWING my mom that she had the thought to do it. (And after all, she DID originally have the thought, which is the most important thing.) This solution offers the middle ground and is a win-win. And it worked out EXACTLY, like how I had envisioned. See? This marriage thing ain't that hard. I don't know why everybody is trippin...

Since that day, I have made many tiny little compromises. Even a stubborn asshole like me has to sacrifice something if I want a successful marriage. It's too bad our society is going away from this idea. Society as a whole has become one big stubborn asshole. The only way it will learn, is if all of the little individual stubborn assholes that make up the one big stubborn asshole can change the way they approach things and learn the concept of the middle ground. So if you know any of these tiny little stubborn assholes...please refer them to this blog!

Thanks for reading!
Yours truly,
The King of Nothing