...with sun dried tomatoes, mozzarella and pepperoni in a small dojo office in Bath, Maine, in the 90s.
My teacher, Al Gardner (we called him by the Japanese term, sensei), was a very interesting man. Musician, athlete, fighter, teacher; he was morbidly obese, 2nd generation Armenian (Bardesbanian was the family name) and very charismatic. He was much more than that, too, but that's all I can come up with for now. I loved him and trained hard and got as much as I could from my time in the dojo. And I received a lot from the time I spent there. I gained the social benefits of a hard working but caring group of fellow students, I was given a chance to train children and give them what I had to offer. I had a life long fascination with the martial arts and its promise of transformation. I was learning, growing, receiving appreciation and getting and giving love. A single male in my late 20s - along with a career with its many ups and downs - what could have been better?
The most valuable thing my teacher taught me wasn't how to beat an opponent in a fight, or to be a fearless master of my human frailty, or to find inner peace through meditation. He taught me the overwhelming value of dialogue.
On the aforementioned Thursday nights, he and I would chew the fat. "The fat" included politics, martial arts, his stories, current events, and events at the dojo. We both liked guns and were fascinated with strength, physical power and music, and we were both intoxicated by the charms of the opposite gender.
And it's a good thing we had those things in common. He was a Yankee, I was a southerner. He was out of the rat race after earning a degree from one of the top ten undergraduate colleges in the US, I was a lieutenant in the USN, a Naval Aviator, learning how to conduct war from an airplane. I came from a Christian background and sympathized with the Israelis. He was in tune with the sorrow of the Palestinians. He was a life long democrat and read Time Magazine every week (which I scoffed at involuntarily and rudely). I was a Reagan Republican but realizing in small ways that I didn't like the GOP as much as I wanted to. I think he had used more drugs than I even knew existed, but also left that all behind. I was getting drug tested by the government routinely, had been a police officer before I joined the USN, and limited my intoxicants to beer, and bad beer at that.
As I gained confidence in my safety with him, in my sense that the relationship was real enough that I could speak more freely, I ventured into conversations about the parts of life, the universe and everything on which we disagreed.
I am a nerd and few people I have known have been willing to indulge me in the chase for ideas, the testing of beliefs and the learning that results when thoughts of two different people can mix and mature with honest feedback. It turns out that Al was welcoming of the dialogue.
He never convinced me to believe what he believed. I never convinced him to believe what I believed. Our beliefs should have been a threat to each other. The human connection, the friendship, love and respect we held with each other overcame the human instinct to be right or dominant.
I gained an invaluable insight in those moments with Al, greater than an understanding of what martial arts is, greater than learning a traditional martial arts system (more accurately, small parts of 4 systems). I learned that underneath the disagreement is an assumption, and if I can get to the assumption of someone that believes differently than I do, I'll be able to accept the legitimacy of the belief and honor their humanity in spite of the fear their different belief generates in me.
Sometimes, people believe what they do based on insufficient knowledge, but far more often, their fundamental assumption on a topic drives what they learn.
Discussion to convince will rarely if ever generate enough safety to allow either party to discover the other party's foundational assumption, even if the other party knows to look for it, and thus is a wasted effort.
A caveat to the above conclusion is that there may be a side benefit in that honest discussion helps others who how similar beliefs to see they are not alone, however, if that is the point, it can still be made without questioning the intentions or humanity of those who believe differently.
Another caveat - once the politicians, of either party, make their way to the stage to do battle, they are there to win and they will either lie, cheat, steal or bully their way to a win or they will be eliminated from the political gene pool. Our "political leaders" are the best humans on the planet at doing anything to win while claiming their own virtue exceeds that of their opponent. Fools that we are, we believe them.
The practice of professing belief without expecting to win over or change the beliefs of others is not particularly rewarding in the short term, it's much more sporting to try to win the internet with a snappy quip designed to disparage the beliefs of others. I don't think it is going to be the new rage. I'll keep at it as a celebration of the gift of Al's time and attention.
