path of least resistance

Told wife today that one reason I didn't pursue journalism was a fear of reality. I don't write anything about the world, mostly because I don't have much new or original to say. The only thing I know any more about than anyone else is my own life, sadly. But in addition to all the immediate coverage, reading the flurry of links sent about Israel & Palestine from friends the past day or so, well, I still don't have anything new to say...but it does make me think about choices and how things we do on a daily basis seep into the world as a whole.

It is unbelievable to me how natural it is for people to cling to status quo even, and even especially, in the face of overwhelming reason to change. And how hard it is to commit to a principle rather than a side. To realize that though context does affect what's right and what's wrong, there are absolute rights and wrongs we have agreed upon. Among some friends the phrase "path of least resistance" has come up some times this year, not in relation to current events, but I find it apt for the awful craziness of what's going on in the Middle East. And back here, we continue the way we've been because it's easy.

The phrase came up in relation to me as a person. In recently asking a wonderful friend for some reassurance, of a kind thankfully rarely needed, he told me I'm a crazy person, a mix of immediate relentlessness and everlasting patience. It's true that this doesn't make for an easy personality, that patience simply being a euphemism for the neurotic relentlessness. Aside from pure stubbornness, I hope that the difficulty stems from certain value, and I am thankful every day for the people and things in my life that make me feel that. I've never been and probably will never be the path of least resistance. And I don't want to be, even if were to make me the path that's taken.

But for the world, let's not make this an exception, let's please take the harder route this time and the next.