This summer I have had an unfortunate amount of time on my hands. I have spent a lot of time with friends, traveled extensively, and worked out religiously to fill the gap between spring and fall semesters. I have also done a lot of reading. I have never been a huge fan of fiction but this summer even my non-fiction selections sparked limited enthusiasm. I went the more esoteric route of reading philosophers. My minor in my program is Religion and Philosophy as they relate to Political Theory. In the fall I am doing an independent study with an intimidating super intellectual who has already given me quite the reading list of difficult texts. I would be stupid not to use my free time to get a jump on this challenge.
With these readings has come a lot of existential thinking about life, my purpose in it, my interaction with others, and again, my own personal value system. I have previously written about my endeavor to define for myself what I believe and how I live. This is more challenging but ultimately more satisfying than a superficial claim to one religious group identity or another.
Although my readings do not address the golden rule explicitly, my mind often drifts to an examination of it. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is the familiar Christian version of the axiom but there are similar variations in a lot of faith and philosophic traditions. What picks at me sometimes is the implied loophole. Maybe I’m the only one that sees it but I often think people, including myself, will use this guiding principle as a way to justify not treating others well in the face of mistreatment.
Taking a good hard look at myself this summer I have identified a pattern for which I am not proud. I have too often responded to hurt with hurt. I have used the absence of principle and restraint in others to justify the same in myself. Assuming certain people I meet are not going to be nice to me I have preemptively been rude or cold to them. Absorbing the recent implicit and outright explicit insults toward my identity – my religious expression, my sexuality, my gender expression – I developed a mentality that it was okay to retaliate with similar insults. It is not.
I’m not sure what a suitable modification to the golden rule would be. Do unto others as you know is right to do unto them regardless of what they do unto you? And it is quite possible that the original does not need improving, just my interpretation of it. People are going to ridicule me. People are going to hurt me and let me down. That does not give me license to be brutally reciprocal or preemptively worse.
Years ago my friend Dave played the song Make Your Own Kind Of Music and it has been one of my banner anthems ever since. The full lyrics are below but these lines in particular mean a lot to me.
You're gonna be knowing
the loneliest kind of lonely.
It may be rough goin',
just to do your thing's
the hardest thing to do.
I have to accept that in trying to live by the principles in which I believe I may be misunderstood and ridiculed. I may falsely be accused of bigotry and fascism (both have occurred recently) and I may lose friends. But I have to remain true to myself and know that my own way is the only way that is comfortable for me.
Mama Cass – Make Your Own Kind Of Music
Nobody can tell ya;
There's only one song worth singin'.
They may try and sell ya,
'cause it hangs them up
to see somone like you.
But you've gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music
even if nobody else sing along.
You're gonna be knowing
the loneliest kind of lonely.
It may be rough goin',
just to do your thing's
the hardest thing to do.
But you've gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music even if nobody
else sings along.
So if you cannot take my hand,
and if you must be goin',
I will understand.
You gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music even if nobody
else sings along.
