Sans Fig Leaf
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"Closing"
14 September, 2006
Some years ago, while Ray and I were getting our wills done (along with powers of attorney and documents about extreme medical emergencies), we also wrote up instructions for our funerals. It was recommended in one of the books we had consulted. Part of the idea was that you are relieved your bereaved relatives of a burden. The other part, for those of us not heterosexual, is you can attempt to head off your family from doing something like not allowing your life partner to attend the funeral, that sort of thing.
Part of what I wrote up was a document I called "I get the last word." I wanted it to be read at my memorial service. It included several specific comments to specific family members and friends. I was trying to make it both funny and serious without getting all sappy and cliched.
I didn't look at it again for several years. When Ray died I had to find the one he wrote, and we did our best to abide by his wishes. That made me look at the document again. Some of the things that had seemed funny to me when I first wrote it now struck me as petty and mean. So I rewrote it.
At one point or another most of us have wanted to get in the last word. Whether it be a single argument or an ongoing difference of opinion with someone, we just feel so strongly about something that we have to keep replying. It doesn't matter if the reply is lame, just as long as we say it.
I've come to realize over the years that that impulse seldom leads to any good. Some of the things I had written in the first version of the document are sterling examples of that lesson.
It's easy to get hung up on being right. It's not enough to believe that we are correct about something. We want the other person admit that we were correct and they were wrong. We don't usually think of it that way, of course. We say we're trying to help them see the truth--because at the heart of it we believe we're correct. Or if we are willing to admit that we might not be completely correct, we say that we're just trying to understand their side of it.
But that's just a rationalization.
Which isn't to say that we don't sometimes genuinely want to understand the other person. Or that sometimes in the lively exchange and opinions one of the other of us doesn't sometimes come to a new appreciation of a different viewpoint. Sometimes we really are listening with an open mind. Those things can and do happen--just not quite as often as we'd like to think.
I love having a good discussion. Sometimes I enjoy it too much. If I notice that I'm getting into that mode of desperately needing to get in the last word, I try to stop myself and walk away from the argument. If I'm not willing to change my mind, the other person probably isn't, either.
And we all have better things to do.
--Samuel Johnson
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