Friends,
One of my favorite topics to ponder is memory. Our brains have storage capabilities, but they're very mysterious. I can tell you my multiplication tables or the capital of Florida, but as I attempt to access a memory of an event, things get a little tricky. The images in our minds are blurry, and we can never be quite sure that things happened exactly as we remember them.
One of my favorite things is when an old pleasant memory has lain dormant for a long time, but someone brings it up or something triggers it, and your eyes widen and you say, "That's right!! I'd forgotten all about that!"
I recently read through a facebook message conversation from several years ago and had one of those moments.
So, it is with awe toward the fleeting and hazy aspect of memories that I present to you...
The story of when I almost got in a fight
It's almost happened twice in the last 11 years. This one is by far the funnier.
I went to college once-- enough time has passed that the memories are getting harder to grasp, but I know for sure that I went. While there, I was the president of a Christian student group. What you may not realize is that sometimes the paid employees of Christian student organizations call upon the student presidents to put out fires.
One rainy day sometime around the middle of last decade, I was called upon to put out one of these fires. [Note: in neither of the previous uses of the word fires do I mean a literal fire. I hope that was clear.] Our group had a listserv ("An electronic mailing list of people who wish to receive specified information from the Internet" - thanks Google) so that each week we could update all interested students about our events, schedule, etc. The thing about a listserv, though, is that anyone can email it. All you need is the name of the listserv to email everyone on the list.
The problem was that one student was emailing our listserv to advertise events of a different Christian group, and these events often took place at the same time as our events. So obviously, blatant misuse of the listserv. I won't even go into the many reasons this behavior was absurdly wrong (though if I did, the list would include violation of clearly expressed guidelines, extreme inefficiency, inconsiderate spamming of people's inboxes, ignorance of why separate groups exist...).
Needless to say, the fire had to be put out. Unfortunately, I was the group's student president.
I saw the student (for the sake of the story, we'll call him Jackson, because that's a cool name) as he was leaving the dining hall. He was carrying a djembe, as was his custom. I will not attempt to understand or explain this custom. The following event transpired:
I politely asked Jackson if he would stop using our listserv to promote the other events that were the same time as our events. I told him I understood his heart behind it was for unity, not for the glory of himself or the other group, but that that our listserv was for our events and needs; if we let one other group promote with it, we have to let them all, and soon students will get 3000 emails a day, etc. etc.
At this point I would have bet money that he'd say, "Ok,I understand," or at the very most, that he'd request to speak about the matter further. Alas, I would have lost money, which is the main reason I'm not a betting man.
Jackson: "That's B.S.!!! People use that thing for selling their geology textbooks! You and your whole group pretend you want Christian unity, but you obviously don't care about it and you're hypocrites!"
[It was true that a student had once used the listserv to try to sell a geology textbook. But do I look like the kind of guy who's going to accept the logic of "Oh yeah, well someone else did something worse than what I did, so I take no blame"? If anyone reading this doesn't know me, I'll go ahead and fill you in-- I don't look like that kind of guy.]
As I opened my mouth to verbally dispose of this kindergarten logic, he instantly turned and walked into the men's restroom without another word. I decided I couldn't let him escape this confrontation for any length of time, so I opened the door and proceeded to attempt to reason with him from the doorway.
But Jackson, perhaps feeling that the normal silence in a men's room is covenental and sacred, bullied his way out of my tactic by saying, "I'm trying to piss, Jon. I'm trying to piss Jon. I'm trying to piss, Jon." He just kept saying it.
When he and his djembe returned from the loo, I resumed my efforts. I calmly told him that I understood his point, but that listservs have rules and that we were just kindly, without judgment, asking him to obey them. He replied, "Why you acting pissed off at me? Just cause of a few emails. You shouldn't be pissed off about that!"
[You might be wondering why he kept saying I was mad when, to this point, I had been perfectly calm. I was wondering this too. Looking back on it now, I think maybe he was projecting his own anger onto me, or else was just really paranoid. Or else he misread that whole bathroom strategy.]
"Jackson, I'm not pissed off about your emails. That's why I've been calm and rational. What I'm pissed off about is your disrespectful attitude toward me during this discussion."
Now, I didn't think that was too bad. Jackson thought otherwise.
He set down his djembe drum and spread out his arms, swinging his fingers in the classic, beckoning "come fight me" gesture!
By the grace of God, I've barely been exaggerating the whole calmness thing. I really was feeling pretty chill throughout this, so I was able to respond to this ludicrous, hostile stance with-- "Jackson, why did you put down your drum? Pick it up. I'm talking to you about a few emails, man, come on."
He picked up his huge drum and stormed off. Perhaps he went somewhere to play a tribal song of anger. But he never emailed our listserv again, not even to issue a formal challenge to our group to choose a champion for a 1-on-1 drum-off.
Them's fightin' words
I'm a blogger, not a fighter
Did you ever get in a fight about something stupid? Or just a strong disagreement? Maybe gave someone a funny look?
Jon
