Why is it so difficult to take a strong stance on a burning issue? Yes, it's difficult. If it's easy, it's not strong enough. It's just a wave of the hand. That's never strong enough.
You have an opinion. You recognise that you have an opinion. You see that it's birthed out of certain fortitude. Principles that you've held dear for a while now. Principles that you consider to be formed not out of a whim on a Tuesday evening, but you are sure are seated deep within you. Principles that you know would take a lot to be shaken out of you. What would it take? May be that's a question for another Tuesday. What else would it take? Surely, that's a question for this Tuesday.
Is the issue burning enough? Of course. Thousands of your peers, at least that's what the papers and the tweets and the news say, have been moved. Moved they have been, enough to take a few hours out of their lifeworld and march towards a random building. A symbolic building, but meh, buildings and symbols and V for Vendetta type analogies are also for another Tuesday.
Surely all this must bother you. You, yes. And me. And the person next to me. For the thousands out on the street, there are ten may be twenty times more inside their homes. Reminds you a bit of The Dreamers, yes? Don't get distracted now. It definitely is very bothering. Everything that you understood as being valuable enough, everything that you ever considered worth raising your voice over a dear friend's for, and everything else you one day sidelined for later appraisal, is all being done away with thanks to a simple wave of the hand. Hands that need to be tied down for one fucking moment while you... do what, exactly?
May be it's a question you're uncomfortable to search an answer for. Answers, if you are happy with them, can be very troubling. Answers can make you want to never seek answers again. May be it's an answer that you've always thought was begging for a question. The question has arrived. The answer is being ignored for you know what it means. The passivity is cowardly, albeit a strand of cowardliness that doesn't get seen by the outside.
Restraint is damn funny business. The more you exercise it, the harder it is to seek credit for. Happiness, oh yeah. Visible like the Hindenburg. Restraint needs to be pointed out. Hey, look at me. I'm not over-emoting. Look, damn it. To exercise restraint is the least narcissistic act a fellow could do, I suppose.
Restraint has its time. Everything does. There is time for quiet observation, mulling over the happenings, waving that hand and bidding adieu. But it is not now. Wake up calls usually come at the end of a slumber. Slaps on the wrist are more timely in their arbitrariness.
You have your opinions. You have based them on principles. You decide to exercise restraint.
For shame.
