The person people love to hate

I was having pizza with friends at The Rocket Inn in Indianola Friday night when I was introduced to a man I didn't know. Writing the Mike At Night column came up in our conversation and he said that he and his wife enjoyed the column but that their parents hated it and hated me.

A few weeks back, I stopped at a local watering hole in downtown McCook for an adult beverage and, as I approached the bar, there was a guy sitting there with his back to the bar, facing the tables. As I got to the bar, I spoke to him and he said, "Get away from me."

I said, "I don't even know you." He said, "I don't need to know you, I read that crap you write in the newspaper."

Wherever I go, I get stares and glares from people who don't say anything to me, but it's pretty easy to tell what they're thinking. They don't like me.

They might even hate me. When I first moved to McCook, most everyone waved at me when I was driving down the street. Now a lot don't.

I guess it's understandable, since I tend to write about the things that are most important to me in a way that is sometimes pretty unforgiving and in your face. I've never pulled punches with anyone. I've never hidden my feelings or my emotions. I was raised being told that I had a mind, that I was supposed to use it and that it was okay to voice or write what I was thinking. I've never apologized for that side of me. I suppose some people see it as being confrontational, others see me writing or talking about things that they believe shouldn't be written or talked about. But I've never hidden my feelings or my emotions. Nor do I hide my behavior. I'm an open book for all to see, and some don't like what they see.

I don't like to see injustice in the world. I don't like to see people used and abused and taken advantage of. It's hard for me to tolerate people who are ranting and raving about things they know little or anything about. So, I tend to confront braggarts and bullies and abusers and liars and deceivers. And some people don't like that about me.

I suppose I sometimes come across as arrogant as well. I've been told that. In fact, I've been told that by the love of my life. She was talking to my ex on the phone one day and that was brought up. She told her she liked that about me. Others don't. I don't mean to be arrogant. I just have confidence in myself and my mind and the way it works. I've always been a good judge of people. I'm pretty good at knowing what people are thinking, even when they're not talking. The previously mentioned love of my life found that out about me as well. She once told me she thought I knew her better than she knew herself. She was right.

I know I write about things that upset a lot of people in this part of the country. There are a lot of like-minded people in this part of the country who share a common value system, a common morality, and a common way of seeing and defining the world. Unlike some of my critics who write about me regularly in Open Forum in less than admiring ways, I am not trying to change the mindset of anyone. I'm just offering a different point of view, a different way of looking at and living in the world. I've always told my students that my job is not to tell them WHAT to think but to help them learn HOW to think. That appears to be a lost art among many of us today.

I believe all of us need to be mentally and emotionally stimulated. That can't happen when everyone says the same things and believes the same things.

Muscles can only grow through tension and friction. It's impossible for them to grow at rest. The brain is a muscle. The mind is a part of the brain. It cannot grow either without tension and friction. When we never listen to alternative points of view, when we never look at the other side of the coin, we are slowly but most certainly killing the creative component of our mind, the one thing that separates us from all other living things.

Our founding fathers often wrote about the need to protect minority thought in this country because that's the essence of freedom. It wasn't so long ago that what passes as majority thought today was minority thought then.

And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth by those in the minority in an effort to have their views and their perspectives heard. This reflects the history of our country. The history of free thought. America swings back and forth like a pendulum. We go from liberal thought to conservative thought and back. From religious thought to secular thought and back. Times change. Situations change. People change. That's as it should be.

So, for those of you who hate me, I'm sorry that you do. It's a deadly emotion. It's good for the newspaper business but it's not good for the person because hatred is a poison that eats at you from the inside until it robs you of your very soul. And what a dreadful, boring existence it would be if everyone believed the same, acted the same, dressed the same, and thought the same.

But people seek strength in numbers. The more people that believe like you, act like you, dress like you and think like you, the more secure you are in your rightness and your correctness. (The history of life on this planet, however, proves to us over and over again that the majority has often been wrong about a lot of different things.)

So, I'll continue to think and write in the fashion I have been. The publisher and editor of this paper like it because it sells papers. I will continue to step on toes, ruffle feathers, confront assumptions and challenge conclusions because that's who I am and that's what I do.

You either like this column or you don't. There aren't very many fence sitters. And that's OK.