Lunching, and Hating, At the Senior Center

IT WAS A NORMAL DAY at the local senior center, to the extent that any day is normal anywhere. A rather small crowd, even for a Friday, especially since catfish was being served, and folks could ask for seconds, like I successfully did. I was seated at my usual place at the head of the table, flanked by three eighty year olds, friends of mine all of whom, despite having little formal education, are mighty street smart and savvy. Age seems to do that to folks. A hard right conservtive, a moderate conservative, and an unidentifiable man, probably a moderate, who calls himself "Thunder Wagon", perhaps aspiring to a Cherokee heritage. The topc of verbal disagreements and conflict came up, and we agreedthat there is only a thing line between agreeing to disagree, disagreeing in anger, and outright conflict. My har right Trumper friends mentioned that when he has a difference of opinion with someone, anyone, of the more serious sort, he merely writes the person with whom hs seriously disagree off his list, ignore them, make them dead to him, pretend they aren't in the room when they in fact are. The old invisibility treatment, if you will. I told him that I am well familiar with this strategy,for it has been levied against me more often than I care to think, and was in fact being levied against me by two of my former friends, in this room now, having lunch. Oh, dear me... I further acknowledged that this sort of strategy had occurred to me overthe years, but that I had rarely if ever employed it, it being unnecessary most of the time. I keep my "enemies" closer, if you will. My friend said that he, in effect holds grudges,and does not seek reconciliation, that being his peronal method of dealing with dissention. I don't like that very much,a dn never have. It occurred to me, and I told my friend this, that isnearly every situation in my life, past and present, involving people being aliented towards me, the alienation had been precipitated not by me, by then the other person. That is to say, in nearly every instance, it was the other person who felt as if I had committed an offense of some sort, and had seeminly decided to respond by chosing not to interact or associate with me further, or, in essence, nto to like me anymore. I simply don't do this to other people/ I may stay away from someone or other, but usually it has to do with my perception that the other perosn has no interst in being approached by me, andnothing more. OH, I get annoyed, even angry, but as I age, I notice that whatever grudge I hole tensto last for less than ten minutes, if that. There are exceptions, of course. And that's true. Even now, after all thes years offriendship formation and dissolution and interaction with thousands of homo sapien sapiens, I just don't feel any special animosity towards any particular primate. Now, in all honesty, it must be admitted that I do have a certain misanthropy towards my entire species,though even that is tempered by what seems to be an equal or greater amount of "lovingkindness" for lack of a better word.. I guess I just kind of lump everbody together in one "baske of deplorables" asHillary Clinton put, leave it at that, and move on. Depsite its severslimitations in desirability and efficacy,this approach does at least have the benefit of alleviating a great deal of the lingering, personal burdensome baggage of emotional trial and turmoil,teh burden of hatred. "Dross", as it is called in the hymn "Are You Leaning on the Cross"? (I for one am not). The gang of eighty year olds fell silent, perhaps in sadness, when I related that depsite my generally magnanimous approach to people, I have, rather recently,nonetheless developed one particular hatred, a hatred so intense that it burns and rages within me, teaching me more than I ever wanted to know about my own capacity for abject hatred. I could sens by their silence that they all know exactly who I was talking about. A Louis Armstrong said about understanding jazz; "If they don't by now, they never wiil". I can only hope that they do, and that they fully agree.