Being trampled to death by geese is a slow way of dying.
--Soren Kierkegaard
The Queen City in November. Say what you want, but don't say it looks pretty. Gritty, dirty, depressing, but there is something there, something real. It's sad, and it's not sad. Prostitutes glide across the streets in search of customers and cash. That, I think to myself, we have in common.
Having finished a zoning meeting in Tonawanda, N.Y., with an assortment of bored local officials, I ducked into a neighboring bar with my design engineer in tow for a quick beer. They didn't sell alcohol in Benton County at the time, so an authentic Buffalo dive was an opportunity not to be denied. Up there, in bars, was where people really lived. Faded sports photos lined the walls, faded dreamers lined the chairs. The poet Charles Bukowski said, that when you drank, the world was still out there, but for the moment, it didn't have you by the throat.
It didn't help that the engineer was wearing a yellow bow tie, which, to my dismay, matched perfectly the yellow tie I had worn just for the meeting. I thought we looked like those two actors in the film Twins, but I'm not saying who was who. As we settled into our stools, laughter rang out from three guys at the other end of the bar. "Take a look at these two!" said one. "Do ya think they're lost?" chortled another one. And with that, I did the only sensible thing a man can do in that situation: I walked over to them and pulled up a chair.
"Hey guys, we're just visiting, and I'm looking for a place that serves real food. Recommend something?" Ten minutes later, the five of us are sitting at La Nova having white pizza, the best wings I ever ate in my life (And still counting!) along with a jug of homemade wine that magically appeared under the table. What happened? It's called the Benjamin Franklin effect.
In his autobiography, Franklin describes how a respected peer once gave him an intentional slight. Realizing this man could do him future harm, Franklin set out to turn his hater into a friend, but he wanted to do it without "paying any servile respect to him." Knowing this man had a personal library he was quite proud of, Franklin asked to borrow a book and then returned it with a thank you note. "When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before) and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death." What Franklin discovered was that "He that has once done you a Kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged." The misconception is you do nice things for the people you like and bad things to the people you hate. The truth is you grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm.
Perhaps, if we could see ourselves from the top of the maze, where we hide and seek the other we seem so desperate to control, we would watch a theater of shadows, where we duel with nothing but disfigured forms of shade and marvel at our skill in deluding ourselves while disfiguring the world around us. We swim in an assortment of misconceptions where we think we celebrate diversity and respect others' points of views, but in truth, we are driven to create and form groups and then believe others are wrong, just because they are others. In a community, just like a family, we don't need to all think alike, just be nice. Ask yourself, who wouldn't like that?
The art of asking, to summarize Franklin, is the art of cultivating community. Back to the geese, letting oneself be worn to death by distrust or fear of others is a long, drawn-out process. Change your attitude, change your world, change your community. And maybe, just maybe, La Nova wings.
NAN Our Town on 09/22/2016