Think about the last time you were in a public restroom. Maybe you were at a wedding or perhaps you were in the can just before a lunchtime meeting with an associate, friend, or client.
In the restroom, walking from the urinal, you finish your business and you're faced with an all-too-common dilemma; to wash the hands or not to wash the hands. It's a dilemma, not because you're in a hurry or because you may have some weird fetish for germs, but it's a dilemma because you know that there is at least a fourty percent chance that a handshake is eminant and if you wash, then it is certain that that shake will be wet or, at the very least, clammy, and the doing so, the offer of a damp handshake, is deemed rude, even if only for a moment. And in that moment, the one that you've lived, by now, about thirteen hundred times over due to mispoke words or mistepped (before a lady) doorways or after unintentional mini-burps. In those dreadful split seconds where your faux paus' hang in the wind like boxer shorts on a flagpole, exposed and vulnerable, your whole social presence is transformed, even if only for a moment, and it is in these embarraced-faced situations that make or break your composure, which is what most people tend to feed from like the obese do from the local Golden Coral. And there you are with this seemingly small question in front of you as the urinal flushes behind and the mirror faces in front: to wash and dry with this proposedly green hand dryer (that never fully works even if I finish the job myself on the sides of my pants or in the inside of my pockets) or not to wash and just brush the 'supposed' germs from the conscience by rubbing the hands together a few times as if Pilot from the Easter story.
I, for one, noticed this little terrerium of a greater dilemma of "What is Truth?" about nine months ago when I was still managing / selling construction projects. Meeting the guy for the second time at a Longhorn off Southside, I arrived first, went to the restroom, went through the 'wash or no wash dilemma', washed, dried with the blow dryer and left the restroom for the restuaraunt to see the potential client, hands folded at the fingers and smiling in a fake way, standing patiently at the hostess stand. As we shook, I noticed the most quaintly peculiar look as his brow lowered wrinkledly and his eyes darted quickly to the hostess who then led us to our table.
Thinking that maybe it was just my imagination but still debating the root of the awkwardness, I began to expirement with people: washing and not washing when leaving the restroom in certain situations; shaking and not shaking; replying "I'm Good" in lieu of "I am Well" and vice versa dependant upon the person; wearing matching clothes some days and not matching on others (yeah right, that's never on purpose). And I tried on these social miscues for people so as to document thier reactions. Since doing so rather consistently for the last three or four months, I've noticed three apparent truths about manners: 1) What is proper varies from person to person and from sub-culture to sub-culture, 2) What is proper to a given individual is instant as it is transferred via the subconscience, and 3) What is proper, even if only for the moment, is definant.
But seriously, why do we even shake hands? According to my good friend Google, 'the act of shaking hands upon meeting has been around since about 200 B.C. as a gesture of peace showing that the hands hold no weapons. Shaking hands, weather upon meeting, greeting, departing, for congatulations, at the end of a competition, or to seal an agreement, has since been used, in some form or another, has served humanity with a similar purpose: to convey trust, balance, and equality.'
Moreover, let's look at the evolution of the handshake and it's multiple and perpetually forming styles. From the classic, firm and outstreched with three to four up and down motion three to four inch jostles and release, to the "it's been awhile since the last wedding or funeral" handshake and big pat on the back complete with safe wheather-talk questions and followed by an awkward silence, to the slap me some skin friend, up high, down low, with the elbow; to the handpound, once with the fist, 'now blow it up' and bring it back; to the inverted shake with a bring it in for the real thing chest pound quasi-hug that you might give to a 'long time no see' friend in a public place.
I, for one, noticed this little terrerium of a greater dilemma of "What is Truth?" about nine months ago when I was still managing / selling construction projects. Meeting the guy for the second time at a Longhorn off Southside, I arrived first, went to the restroom, went through the 'wash or no wash dilemma', washed, dried with the blow dryer and left the restroom for the restuaraunt to see the potential client, hands folded at the fingers and smiling in a fake way, standing patiently at the hostess stand. As we shook, I noticed the most quaintly peculiar look as his brow lowered wrinkledly and his eyes darted quickly to the hostess who then led us to our table.
Thinking that maybe it was just my imagination but still debating the root of the awkwardness, I began to expirement with people: washing and not washing when leaving the restroom in certain situations; shaking and not shaking; replying "I'm Good" in lieu of "I am Well" and vice versa dependant upon the person; wearing matching clothes some days and not matching on others (yeah right, that's never on purpose). And I tried on these social miscues for people so as to document thier reactions. Since doing so rather consistently for the last three or four months, I've noticed three apparent truths about manners: 1) What is proper varies from person to person and from sub-culture to sub-culture, 2) What is proper to a given individual is instant as it is transferred via the subconscience, and 3) What is proper, even if only for the moment, is definant.
But seriously, why do we even shake hands? According to my good friend Google, 'the act of shaking hands upon meeting has been around since about 200 B.C. as a gesture of peace showing that the hands hold no weapons. Shaking hands, weather upon meeting, greeting, departing, for congatulations, at the end of a competition, or to seal an agreement, has since been used, in some form or another, has served humanity with a similar purpose: to convey trust, balance, and equality.'
Moreover, let's look at the evolution of the handshake and it's multiple and perpetually forming styles. From the classic, firm and outstreched with three to four up and down motion three to four inch jostles and release, to the "it's been awhile since the last wedding or funeral" handshake and big pat on the back complete with safe wheather-talk questions and followed by an awkward silence, to the slap me some skin friend, up high, down low, with the elbow; to the handpound, once with the fist, 'now blow it up' and bring it back; to the inverted shake with a bring it in for the real thing chest pound quasi-hug that you might give to a 'long time no see' friend in a public place.
The handshake and it's various and perpetually evolving forms are that great little piece of a sub-culture that is often misunderstood yet always necessary in the greeting of friendly or at least 'on the surface of friendly' company. It is a telling of and a listening for that takes place in an instant, as if hitting a major league baseball - seeing the wind and the pitch; seams or no seams; one or two seams; is it strait and fast on the outside corner or is it a change - slow and decieving and destined to be low and late; or maybe it's a curve, starting high and spinning out of control to the dirt. In this moment, if one were to misread the pitch or come in too fast or too late, then the handshake and thus the meeting will begin poorly. In baseball, a half of a second is all one has to decide what pitch and where, when, and if to swing and if you muck it up, then that pitch is gone and your behind in the count '0 and 1.' The good news is that while a poorly read or a badly shaken hand may leave you slightly "behind in the count", you have several other chances to impress or disimpress your adversarial friend or associate or, perhaps, your blind date. (If it is a blind date, in the interest of being polite, be sure to lead her with your arm as you would any girl.)
The next step, prior to even speaking, is your style of dress. As one who typically wears clothes from the last-season sales rack, it still amazes me as to the massive variety of the "right things to wear" available. And as a man that lives a Tale of Two Cities traveling back and forth to and from Brunswick and Jacksonville, I have an interesting vantage point of noticing even the slightest differences in style from one state to another. In Georgia, the Polo horse still stands strong; in Florida, the dragon T. In Georgia, no gel; in Florida, gel (white guys). In Florida, girls still wear skimpy little hot ass little cutoff jean shorts. In Georgia, most women buried thiers just after "Way Down Yonder on the Chatahoochie" stopped playing on country music radio stations. And the back and forth differences continue to colors and shoes and jackets and you get the picture; but wait, theres more.
When I first moved to Jax, I moved to Southside and then to Neptune Beach shortly thereafter, which is where I stayed for about two years up until the beginning of July '09. Now I'm back on Southside. Having had the opportunity to see the beaches with each set of sub-cultural eyes, I remember the Handwashing Dilemma-esque situation that we, my friends and I, encountered weekendly. (First, a little geography: in order to get to "the beaches" from the mainland one had to cross the intercoastal waterway, or "the ditch.") Those who lived in town on the other side of the ditch whom often commuted to the beach bars on weekend nights to party were considered "townies" and those of us who lived at the beach were refferred by them as "beachrats." For the most part, it was a harmless rivalry and longnecks and threehorns did play with one another often. Looking back, the amazing thing was our ability to spot a Townie from across the bar or even from across the parking lot. Even more incredible is that, despite the occasional chachie-douchebag dudes, everyone from Jax that goes out at the beach dresses pretty similar. Now this is profound in two distinctly different ways: 1) Being that the beach bars are by far the best bars, people come from all over Jacksonville and the surrounding area to get drunk at them. While the sub-culture and the style of dress in whatever nook-and-cranie part of town in which they live may vary, those that come to the Beach even every now and then to hang tend to have adapted their nightly wardrobe to that which matches the majority at the beaches or at the bar or bars where he or she most frequently hangs. 2) We almost always picked out the Townies from the Beachrats from a distance despite the fact that their dress was similar. This means, to me, that we were picking up on sub-conscience clues to peg them as friend or foe, native or outsider, skeasy beach biotch or easy townie doe. From the blatenly obvious, yet sometimes misleading cues - beachrats drive beachcruisers, while townies park their cars and walk - to the more vague and often more effective subtelties - the comfort-in-my-kingdom squint of the eyes versus the bobble-head-swivel-desperate-search-for-a-place-to-talk-smiledly-nervousness that screams OUT OF PLACE to everyone in the place. I now know all too well because I've slowly but surely become the later - an other-side-of-the-ditch son of the rich in a poor place wearing two and half year old pair of shoes that vaguely match my Polo Jeans and Brooks Bros. collared shirt with the golden lamb laced and hanging from above by a golden rope in his gut, which isn't ironic at all because that is who I am when I am the townie at the beach bars, walking from an eleven mile driven town truck to a place that was once in my element, but is now only an occasional scene where I must wear an out of date chamelion mask and only hope that I can find multiple high fives and, if I'm lucky, one stimulatingly funny conversation amongst the millions of beach cruisers that comfortably laugh and sit and dude-bro-whatup girl-holla-holla-holla at each other in their dreadfully cool dragon T's and board shirts and skater shoes and swagger jacker skater haters and popped collars and gel and hourglass shaped dresses that top out fakely with bleach-blonde hair and blue-contacts blue eyes.
But back to the initial meeting of a friend or not-yet-friend; after a dry and dirty or clean and clammy handshake that may or may not have been the appropriate shaken style, after the all-know half-second glace exchange of the respective digs, there is the initial "hi, how have you been, it's good to see you." Now, the grammatically correct answer to the respective grammatically correct question is, "I'm well, how are you?" From there, it is whitely proper to engage in a sequetially unraveling line of weather-talk questions and short, politely smiling answers in which the allowable topics are the weather, traffic, the resturaunt or establishment or even about the general area of the city if it is one that is foriegn to either one of them (all of which should be obviously agreeable). It's deemed proper, mind you, grammatically - i.e. by a certain group of people who study english and continue to box it in and name it according to what they think is proper.
Back in the days when I used to manage construction projects and back in the days prior when I used to hold concrete pump's hoses, manage sump pump motors, and literally dig ditches to place aggregate (rocks) on hot-Georgia-sun days, the way to aproach someone verbally in the cool 6:30 morning dew covered site was simple - "Mornin" , "Mornin." From there, silence ensued for a second or ten, followed by a strait-faced hilarious story and laughs and banter and there was always a poke-fun at the new guy and one behind-the-back-talk for the foreman until he shows and then the day begins and the stories continue, some true - SOME - but all were as funny as a sheep dog on ice skates.
And on the ball court, there's whole different verbal routine and a brand new cadence. As there is I'm sure in a Ball Room with courtsies and "Good Evening, Madame"'s, as there is a slightly different etiquete entrance speach with each of your circles; at work, home, church, with Mom, with Dad, with the girl you hope to soon "know", with the ex-girl you once knew, with the waitress at Longhorn versus the cashier at Wendy's.
The gist is that many of us live our whole life in accordance to this seemingly endless barrage of Sienfield-esque rules of engagement. We speak, dress, shake, and fake our way through each day as if drone lemmings marching to and from our involuntary appointments speaking, dressing, and shaking involuntarily to a similarly, yet inconsistantly percieved Jody Call, as if to the tune of a military-esqu song so appropriately named, "Manners", by The Unending Attempt to Fit In.
And more appealing, when you back up from yourself and look at the whole wonderful ordeal as if a bird on an away-from-it-all perch, the author of the song, The Unending Attempt to Fit In, is as blind and brillient as the would-be son of Ray Charles and Helen Keller. While this Unending Attempt is at the very core of all that is human, he doesn't even realize what he or she means to fit into. If it is a box, then it is an elastic box; always changing; forever expanding in one circle and minimizing in another; perpetually chamelion in color from the outside and also in the in. The threshold between right and wrong, good and evil, coothe and uncoothe, it seems, varies dependent upon the social circle as the wheather varies according to the presence of the sun. And we get so caught up in this neverending tussle of an attempt at vain, fake, correctness until it happens. Until finally, on some rain-skyed day on the northside, God grants us eyes and wings and cold, hungry, poverty and we can see, for but only a moment, the greater truth of the lacking, which is also the giving. Lying flat on the back, eyes to the place in the clouds where the sun should be, peered on only by the bird that may or may not sing, can one realize that the sun, the true sun, weather it's raining or cold or sweat-drippingly scorching, is there; weather we like it or not, it's there; in all of it's terrible glory, it's there; it's always there.
The next step, prior to even speaking, is your style of dress. As one who typically wears clothes from the last-season sales rack, it still amazes me as to the massive variety of the "right things to wear" available. And as a man that lives a Tale of Two Cities traveling back and forth to and from Brunswick and Jacksonville, I have an interesting vantage point of noticing even the slightest differences in style from one state to another. In Georgia, the Polo horse still stands strong; in Florida, the dragon T. In Georgia, no gel; in Florida, gel (white guys). In Florida, girls still wear skimpy little hot ass little cutoff jean shorts. In Georgia, most women buried thiers just after "Way Down Yonder on the Chatahoochie" stopped playing on country music radio stations. And the back and forth differences continue to colors and shoes and jackets and you get the picture; but wait, theres more.
When I first moved to Jax, I moved to Southside and then to Neptune Beach shortly thereafter, which is where I stayed for about two years up until the beginning of July '09. Now I'm back on Southside. Having had the opportunity to see the beaches with each set of sub-cultural eyes, I remember the Handwashing Dilemma-esque situation that we, my friends and I, encountered weekendly. (First, a little geography: in order to get to "the beaches" from the mainland one had to cross the intercoastal waterway, or "the ditch.") Those who lived in town on the other side of the ditch whom often commuted to the beach bars on weekend nights to party were considered "townies" and those of us who lived at the beach were refferred by them as "beachrats." For the most part, it was a harmless rivalry and longnecks and threehorns did play with one another often. Looking back, the amazing thing was our ability to spot a Townie from across the bar or even from across the parking lot. Even more incredible is that, despite the occasional chachie-douchebag dudes, everyone from Jax that goes out at the beach dresses pretty similar. Now this is profound in two distinctly different ways: 1) Being that the beach bars are by far the best bars, people come from all over Jacksonville and the surrounding area to get drunk at them. While the sub-culture and the style of dress in whatever nook-and-cranie part of town in which they live may vary, those that come to the Beach even every now and then to hang tend to have adapted their nightly wardrobe to that which matches the majority at the beaches or at the bar or bars where he or she most frequently hangs. 2) We almost always picked out the Townies from the Beachrats from a distance despite the fact that their dress was similar. This means, to me, that we were picking up on sub-conscience clues to peg them as friend or foe, native or outsider, skeasy beach biotch or easy townie doe. From the blatenly obvious, yet sometimes misleading cues - beachrats drive beachcruisers, while townies park their cars and walk - to the more vague and often more effective subtelties - the comfort-in-my-kingdom squint of the eyes versus the bobble-head-swivel-desperate-search-for-a-place-to-talk-smiledly-nervousness that screams OUT OF PLACE to everyone in the place. I now know all too well because I've slowly but surely become the later - an other-side-of-the-ditch son of the rich in a poor place wearing two and half year old pair of shoes that vaguely match my Polo Jeans and Brooks Bros. collared shirt with the golden lamb laced and hanging from above by a golden rope in his gut, which isn't ironic at all because that is who I am when I am the townie at the beach bars, walking from an eleven mile driven town truck to a place that was once in my element, but is now only an occasional scene where I must wear an out of date chamelion mask and only hope that I can find multiple high fives and, if I'm lucky, one stimulatingly funny conversation amongst the millions of beach cruisers that comfortably laugh and sit and dude-bro-whatup girl-holla-holla-holla at each other in their dreadfully cool dragon T's and board shirts and skater shoes and swagger jacker skater haters and popped collars and gel and hourglass shaped dresses that top out fakely with bleach-blonde hair and blue-contacts blue eyes.
But back to the initial meeting of a friend or not-yet-friend; after a dry and dirty or clean and clammy handshake that may or may not have been the appropriate shaken style, after the all-know half-second glace exchange of the respective digs, there is the initial "hi, how have you been, it's good to see you." Now, the grammatically correct answer to the respective grammatically correct question is, "I'm well, how are you?" From there, it is whitely proper to engage in a sequetially unraveling line of weather-talk questions and short, politely smiling answers in which the allowable topics are the weather, traffic, the resturaunt or establishment or even about the general area of the city if it is one that is foriegn to either one of them (all of which should be obviously agreeable). It's deemed proper, mind you, grammatically - i.e. by a certain group of people who study english and continue to box it in and name it according to what they think is proper.
Back in the days when I used to manage construction projects and back in the days prior when I used to hold concrete pump's hoses, manage sump pump motors, and literally dig ditches to place aggregate (rocks) on hot-Georgia-sun days, the way to aproach someone verbally in the cool 6:30 morning dew covered site was simple - "Mornin" , "Mornin." From there, silence ensued for a second or ten, followed by a strait-faced hilarious story and laughs and banter and there was always a poke-fun at the new guy and one behind-the-back-talk for the foreman until he shows and then the day begins and the stories continue, some true - SOME - but all were as funny as a sheep dog on ice skates.
And on the ball court, there's whole different verbal routine and a brand new cadence. As there is I'm sure in a Ball Room with courtsies and "Good Evening, Madame"'s, as there is a slightly different etiquete entrance speach with each of your circles; at work, home, church, with Mom, with Dad, with the girl you hope to soon "know", with the ex-girl you once knew, with the waitress at Longhorn versus the cashier at Wendy's.
The gist is that many of us live our whole life in accordance to this seemingly endless barrage of Sienfield-esque rules of engagement. We speak, dress, shake, and fake our way through each day as if drone lemmings marching to and from our involuntary appointments speaking, dressing, and shaking involuntarily to a similarly, yet inconsistantly percieved Jody Call, as if to the tune of a military-esqu song so appropriately named, "Manners", by The Unending Attempt to Fit In.
And more appealing, when you back up from yourself and look at the whole wonderful ordeal as if a bird on an away-from-it-all perch, the author of the song, The Unending Attempt to Fit In, is as blind and brillient as the would-be son of Ray Charles and Helen Keller. While this Unending Attempt is at the very core of all that is human, he doesn't even realize what he or she means to fit into. If it is a box, then it is an elastic box; always changing; forever expanding in one circle and minimizing in another; perpetually chamelion in color from the outside and also in the in. The threshold between right and wrong, good and evil, coothe and uncoothe, it seems, varies dependent upon the social circle as the wheather varies according to the presence of the sun. And we get so caught up in this neverending tussle of an attempt at vain, fake, correctness until it happens. Until finally, on some rain-skyed day on the northside, God grants us eyes and wings and cold, hungry, poverty and we can see, for but only a moment, the greater truth of the lacking, which is also the giving. Lying flat on the back, eyes to the place in the clouds where the sun should be, peered on only by the bird that may or may not sing, can one realize that the sun, the true sun, weather it's raining or cold or sweat-drippingly scorching, is there; weather we like it or not, it's there; in all of it's terrible glory, it's there; it's always there.
Further, or perhaps, lesser, so is the woman beneath low-clashioned clothes at a high-fashoioned ball. And so is the "I'm Good" introduction acceptance at the "I'm Smart and you're not" alumni convention. And finally, so are the germs on the unwashed hand that you accept everyday without a smirk or snicker because it's dry and thus satisfactory, because something in your right-minded brain says that that's the way it should be.
And how much more often does this dilemma play out in our lives - to act according to the avoidance of immediate WTF-looks and perhaps, still, to satisfy a most acceptable conclusion as we forgoe the action that would otherwise serve the best interest of the greater good? In the friendly-shady invite or the shady-friendly deni'nvite, in big ole fake boobs, in the waive and smile because I just cut you off in traffic, its in holding the door for strangers who are within ten or less steps, and in saying Ma'am or Sir, or in the way one crosses her legs in certain company. All of these and more are indicative of man's means to cope with man. How do you cope everyday? Are we so wrong for doing so?
To do what is best for all is best of all, always?,
Just because it makes people laugh doesn't always mean it's a Good joke,
None of us always wash our hands,
Truth More Now
And how much more often does this dilemma play out in our lives - to act according to the avoidance of immediate WTF-looks and perhaps, still, to satisfy a most acceptable conclusion as we forgoe the action that would otherwise serve the best interest of the greater good? In the friendly-shady invite or the shady-friendly deni'nvite, in big ole fake boobs, in the waive and smile because I just cut you off in traffic, its in holding the door for strangers who are within ten or less steps, and in saying Ma'am or Sir, or in the way one crosses her legs in certain company. All of these and more are indicative of man's means to cope with man. How do you cope everyday? Are we so wrong for doing so?
To do what is best for all is best of all, always?,
Just because it makes people laugh doesn't always mean it's a Good joke,
None of us always wash our hands,
Truth More Now
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