This week I finished rereading The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz. This is a book that I read about 15 (or more!) years ago, and which I found during my recent reorganization. Fittingly, the book is all about how to structure one’s life as a creator — and more, a book about choosing to do valuable work in the world, about choosing to be free. It is a book of great optimism for the future. One of the last chapters is a tribute to the legacy of John F. Kennedy, which, according to Fritz, was “not political,” but “orientational” (273):

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concerns, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his experience. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment. The artist, faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an offensive state.
– John F. Kennedy

I’ve been trying to read about what one can do in troubled (and troubling) times, and while I’m happy to wear a safety pin in solidarity with the marginalized, the real key, to my mind, is to BE the change, and not just post on Facebook about it.

Back in September, at my college, I began my English 101 class class by introducing the concept of cognitive dissonance. I also, that first day, asked how many students are first-generation college students. To my surprise, nearly every student raised his or her hand.

Cognitive Dissonance, in short, is the tension created when we try to hold conflicting ideas or values in our mind at the same time. One of the goals of education, perhaps counter-intuitively, is to help us be more comfortable with this tension, to be willing to live with it longer. To be willing to look at it and feel it rather than immediately act to reduce it. When we learn to tolerate tension, or what some people call discrepancy, we can become more aware of what we are really facing. We can tolerate reading articles about an opposing viewpoint. We can see clearly where we are behaving against our own best interests, and, if we choose, we can more easily change our behavior.

When you are being defensive, it’s a good bet that you are trying to avoid dissonance. When we too quickly act to avoid dissonance, we squash opposing viewpoints. We rage at these who don’t agree with us, or we tune them out. We reduce the opposition to sound bites. We demonize. (A fairly perfect definition of an election campaign TV commercial.) We might have a very high IQ, and in other circumstances enjoy reading, might be perfectly able to read and think, but in an election year (for instance) in order to reduce tension in our emotions, we refuse to listen to someone who disagrees with us–we stop subscribing to the newspaper or journals that in other times have delighted us. We don’t watch news that doesn’t pander–I use this word deliberately–to our point of view.

My advice, as a writer, is to learn to live with cognitive dissonance. Endeavor to become thoroughly cynical about what you are seeing and hearing. Be cynical even of your own convictions and opinions. Examine everything.

And vote.