Disarmament Treaties

I had this thought lately while watching a reality show.

“How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath to say to me that thou art out of breath?” –Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Whenever I hear someone arguing to the point of shouting, three things come to mind:

1. This person has enough energy to shout and fight.

2. This person has enough time in his/her day to engage in combat.

3. This person puts a priority in shouting and fighting over any other less combative activities at this moment.

If this person is shouting/fighting at me, I almost always give in. Yes, you win and I’m a coward I’ll tell them. Yes, I’m wrong with my beliefs. Yes, yes, yes, anything to end the argument.

I’ve realized that there is no winning most arguments, especially the violent ones. Just the fact that I’m in one means that I already lost, because it’s taken me away from the things that I love to do, which is napping, eating, creating something artsy or designy, watching a movie, or simply resting.

(I think, but am not sure, that there are people who actually like to shout and argue, as if shouting and arguing is an essential element of their existence.)

If just being in a fight/argument means that I’ve already lost, well, I may as well admit that I lost, end the fight/argument, and try to recoup lost time.

I heard someone say this, might have been Deepak Chopra, that a battle doesn’t exist unless both parties choose to fight. One person throws out a set of words as weapons of first volley, then wait for the counterattack. Many times there is a counterattack, in which case the battle becomes official.

But if there is no counterattack, the battle never begins. The absence of retaliatory words means disarmament on the spot.

Even if there was a fight, how is the winner determined? Since at the end of most, if not all fights, no opinions are changed, nobody is any smarter than before, and nothing gets accomplished, except maybe one or both parties “got it out of their system”. And if that’s the reason for fighting, I suggest that we instead use our energies to dig wells and look for drinkable water, because that’s much more in short supply than escalating quibbles.