Kneejerk Argument

The opposite of being awake and present in my life is falling back into the same old arguments.

I just took part in a minor verbal skirmish in my writing group. My friend Christina, the other actively religious person in the group, and I got into a polite but insistent conversation about how much of the belief of the Gnostics was based on doctrine and how much on the experience of the believer.

Now, that's likely to be a large yawn for most readers.

Not for Christina and me. We marshalled our facts and a hefty dictionary, and neither of us budged in our position.

It ended fine, with both of us where we began. We moved on to tea at the neighborhood Whole Foods, and to subjects of more general interest.

But now I'm annoyed with myself for heating up the burners under that subject once again.

I do know what it's about: I have a still-belligerent preference for personal experience over received wisdom. Which is to say that I fall into the category of "cain't tell that girl nuthin'." Or want to, anyway.

Apparently I'd also like to believe that others in history have felt the same way.

I'm fine with that. What bugs me is the feeling I got during the conversation that I was starting to behave in a preset manner, that I'd yielded in-the-moment responsiveness to a pointless old routine.

I find it damned hard to stop that reflexive feistiness once it starts, and it's such a waste of steam.