Crazy chicks, frozen tongues and regrets, lots of regrets

Dear whomever,
Anybody who reads this column regularly (both of you) and is considering joining me in the radical middle – the place where common sense and discussion mean more than scare tactics and mindless convictions – should know something ahead of time: there are a lot of regrets here. They’re everywhere. They’re like crazy chicks in a Michael Douglas film; you just can’t get away from them.

I regret something every single day of my life. Whether it’s taking the wrong street, ordering the wrong meal, saying the wrong thing, failing to talk to that cute girl, sleeping in, not sleeping enough, etc. etc., I can’t imagine going an hour – let alone a day – without having at least one and as many as six thousand regrets. But I don’t see anything wrong with that. In fact, I view it as not only a healthy but an essential part of being a functioning human in contemporary society.

The word itself – regret – comes with all this baggage and all these negative connotations, but really all it’s saying is that you recognize how a different course of action would have been somehow better. Even if it’s relatively insignificant, as most of them are, the point is that you recognized it. And here’s the thing; if you can’t do that, you better throw out any hope of ever growing as a person.

I hate those people who say they don’t have any regrets. I hate them. Seriously, if you’ve ever said that, and meant it, then I hope you pale in a vicious accident (preferably one involving a handsaw and some unstable dynamite). Claiming you’ve never regretted a single thing in your entire life is absurd to the point of being offensive. What you’re really saying is that you’re infallible, that no matter how wrongly you chose it’s somehow right simply because you chose it. Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for personal accountability, but that doesn’t give me a priori instinct that means every path I choose is a righteous one. I’m lucky if I go 20 minutes without screwing up and – you know what – so are you, even if you pretend otherwise.

I mean, isn’t the whole idea of life that it’s an evolving process where you learn as you go? Sometimes it’s debilitating, to be sure, but nobody among us (with the possible exception of MacGyver) was born with the faculties to go through life always choosing correctly, always doing the right thing.

I think what really bothers me about this kind of thinking is to watch the manifestations of this very high form of arrogance in our public figureheads. If our governing officials admitted their mistakes once in awhile, if they took accountability for their actions and apologized when they screwed up, that would take a lot of the cynicism and senseless squabbling out of the whole process. I would be infinitely more willing to put my trust in someone who does what they think is right but has the wisdom to admit when they’re wrong, rather than someone who sticks to their convictions like a human tongue to an Antarctic flagpole. And I’m not talking exclusively about the Bush administration here, I’m talking about pretty much every governing body in the history of the world.

It goes beyond politics, though, as it often does in the radical middle. If people as a general rule lowered their façade of trying to be cool once in awhile, if honesty was rewarded more than the appearance of being right, we’d all be more apt to admit mistakes, personal defeats, and laugh about regrets. I don’t care how Dr. Phil it sounds, being a decent person means being as honest with yourself as you know how to be.

It’s really not that difficult of a procedure – just admit that you fuck up once in awhile, that’s all. But do it soon, cause the next person that tells me they don’t have any regrets is getting an ice pick in the jaw.

Letters from the Radical Middle is a bi-weekly column that encourages discussion over pointless bickering, favoring common sense and a logical middle ground over blind political devotion. Brian Clark is the Managing Editor of the Spokane Sidekick and can be reached at brian@spokanesidekick.com. As always, feedback is encouraged.