Born to fight

In the 1987 American Movie "Full Metal Jacket", one of the most famous props, which even evolved to be the center piece of the movie poster, is Pogue Colonel's helmet, which bears the inscription "Born to kill" alongside a button of the pacifist movement. The character intended to showcase the dualism of having to kill other people at war while, at the same time, yearning for peace. The Vietnam war was fueled with the lives of many conscripted soldiers that had nothing at stake in the war and yet had to give up their time, their health or even their lives at the request of their government whether they believed in the cause or not.

Translated to everyday life, this same dualism can be understood as the need to pick some fights in order to achieve a reasonable level of peace: asserting yourself in front of your parents during your teen age in order to sketch the contour of your identity, every type of competition in sports or other games in order to assess your own capabilities, sailing the job market to find the best possible post for your or even requesting that well-deserved pay rise, they are all examples of confrontations that are aimed at achieving a long(er) period of calm and stability. The better you fight, the higher are the chances that you will not have to fight again (or at least not soon) in the same field.

Photo: Billy McCrorie

However, there are some people who never seem to have enough fighting. They have an inexhaustible supply of grievances queued up, so that as soon as one conflict is settled (or most frequently put to rest) they readily have another one to pick up. An archetype of this behavior is the entitled middle-age white guy who never ceases to find faults in everything. Going out to dinner with him is an endless rosary of petty complaints that can easily sour the evening unless you are particularly clad against it. From the way the cab driver addressed you on your way into town, to the waiting time with the maître d' or the quality of the food, he can unavoidably find defects or shortcomings in almost anything and then be rather long-winded in his rant. He seems to be born to fight.

The funny aspect is that most of these complaints are totally ineffectual. These "natural-born fighters" would rarely dare to speak up to the cab driver or the waiter, which would be only real opportunity to actually change the outcome of the situation. Instead, they pester the company with their whines and simmer in their own bile. Furthermore, if anyone were to suggest using a different cab company or going to another restaurant the most likely answer would be "It does not help. They are all the same".

Endearing as she normally is, Karen sometimes falls into that ranting behavior, mostly after she finds herself in a truly upsetting situation. Some months ago we were headed into the supermarket for the weekly food run but the parking lot was rather full so I dropped her off close to the door and drove on to park the car a couple of blocks down. Headed for the shopping cart shed, she found a stray cart and decided to take it, thus contributing to maintaining the order. However, as she laid her hand on the handlebar a man in his fifties started to yell from ten meters away "Stop! Stop! What are you doing? Who do you think you are to touch that cart?". It turns out that someone had pushed the cart into the man's car and dented it, so he had gone in search for one of the shop's attendants to make an insurance claim. There is no discussion that he was entitled to such a claim, but the way he addressed Karen was understandably upsetting for her. When I arrived I could only see how shaken she was, so much so that she was completely unable to snap back at the rude man. But once we were out of earshot, everything came rushing out of her: for the whole time that we spent in the shop she kept ranting about the episode and luckily we had a shopping list to follow, because she was completely overwhelmed by the frustration and would not have been able to name any product that we needed even if it was not on the list. I was also upset with the guy, but I understood that there was nothing I could do to change his behavior and in all likelihood I will never cross him again, so I just let the matter rest.

Now, months later, I have decided to write about the episode because it has become one of Karen's landmark moments of general grievance. Just today she asked in a conversation "Do you remember the episode with the shopping cart in the parking lot?". Luckily this question did not set the ranting machine in motion, because we (she) have reviewed the situation often enough since it happened and I sometimes wish she were less prone to fighting with her ghosts, even if I still love her so much for many other reasons. Is there a person in your life who was born to fight too? Have a nice evening.