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and

    

Indignation  

merica is a funny place.
We’re expected to be

experienced in everything with-
out having practiced it first.
We’re asked to know things
before we have been taught. We
use gimmicks and sex to adver-
tise everything, and yet we fear
sex more than almost anything,
since it signifies actual commit-
ment and feeling in reality,
while in advertising it signifies
beer and cars.

We fear intimacy. We
fear loss of control. And most
of all, we fear honesty — from
ourselves, and from the world.
We have come. to a state in
which honesty is not expected,
but we still desire it — we
expect more from other people
than we are willing to give our-
selves.

All of these compo-
nents make for a swiftly ticking
bomb. Anything could set it off,
from the small liberal bumper

 

the bonds and create little bits
of society acceptable to their
own existence. Gay people hang
around with other gay people
and get indignant in discussing

the “stupidity” of the religious _

right. Those anti—abortion
activists from Wisconsin get
together and get freakin’ furious
that people won’t turn over to
the belief that abortion is
wrong.

And I get indignant

Everything starts from within -
I think I'll choose to keep my
dignity and give up my

indignation.

sticker on the car next to you, to
the appearance of a man in
farmers’ clothes in a fancy
restaurant, to perhaps a
President getting immorally
elected. Being indignant is a
quality most valued in today’s
society: being a part of a group
that believes things, that knows
that they are in the right (or the
left), a group that provides a
person with a base of reasoning
to fall back upon.

For instance, a sector
of radical religious people may
believe firmly that we are evil
incarnate and must be washed
from the face of the earth.
Obviously, we outside the group
don’t believe that of ourselves.
So that gives both groups — the
religious and ‘the others’ ~
something to be indignant
about. Wonderful!

Walking away from an
encounter with someone whose
beliefs are diametrically
opposed to mine always gives
me a kind of satisfied disgust:
“I sure showed them. My logic
and reasoning are so much bet-
ter than theirs. lt’s clear that I
am the morally higher person.”
In actuality, the other person is

‘ probably saying this, too.

lt’s a hard habit to
break, needing that little bit of
indignation. That’s why people
still form the groups, still make

when the person in front of me
goes ten miles under the speed
limit, and it’s obvious to me
that they’re trying to piss me
off, and I begin to stereotype
the person in the car in front of
me — they’re old, I think,
they’re from Massachusetts,
they’re just learning to drive.
We’re angry. Do we
have to be? We could walk
around with smiles on our faces
all day if “those people” would
start doing things the way we
want them done. But everything
starts from within — I think l’ll
choose to keep my dignity and
give up my indignation. One
person at a time, we can take
away anger in our little world
by not being sucked into
America’s standard of indigna-
tion.
lt’s up to us. V

Charis Boke represented
Vermont at the Youth Poetry
Slam Nationals, will attend
U VM this fall, and lives in
Burlington.