A Challenge to Challenge

"And of course it's all the meat-eaters' fault now, I knew that was coming!" said my friend Carl the cemetery photographer (he does other things) at the picnic on Saturday. I suppose that's a hazard of mixing with vegan Goths a lot of the time. I don't remember a particularly logical sequence of thought which led to this offering, which must have been why it took me aback and I could only respond with something a bit lame like 'Well, obviously there's more to it than eating meat'. 

In a fallen world, there is always a flip side to any positive characteristic, and if I am usually inclined to be a diplomatic and emollient influence in any situation the flip side of that is a reluctance to face disagreement. But I also wonder whether a certain slow-wittedness, or a fear of slow-wittedness, is also at work. I never feel as though I am very good at mustering words when called on to do so. They jostle around in my mind in an unhelpfully ill-disciplined way as I think of the exceptions and caveats to anything I might say. 

It occurs to me that S.D. is very good at the whole business of challenging the way I think, which is part of the point of going to see him. He usually does this by asking something like 'Do you think that's true?' or 'Is that really what you feel?' in a slightly camp manner which expresses a sort of exaggerated puzzlement. Once I have conquered the faint feeling that he's taking the mickey I am compelled to take the thought further, and that is really what you want. At least asking a question back when confronted with something you don't quite agree with gives you time to rally thoughts and words. I wonder how long it took him to learn this technique, and whether I might learn it too.