The following diatribe is an attempt to create an illustrative metaphor to explain the reasons conflicts arise between individuals and nations. Conflicts are almost always ego driven and may be linked to the human compulsion to be victorious in any encounter, no matter how significant or inconsequential.

The stories are real in the sense that some of the events described therein are true to a point but are embellished to fit the theme of the rhetoric.

And…really…I’m just passing the time until I have a windmill to attack.


Driving Range Diversion

I got into a little financial difficulty in my mid years and had to resort to working at a golf driving range. Initially, I was just a frequent customer. I would usually go out to the range two or three times a week to hone my game to its maximum level. During those brief sojourns to the range, I became friends with the owner and his staff.

Eventually, they found out about my situation and offered me a part time position to help allay my pecuniary deficiency. I tried to be lackadaisical about the offer but I immediately jumped at the chance to give it a try. What could be better? Hitting balls at a driving range and getting paid for it.

Over time, the job became a one man operation shared by two of us. The owner started to have health problems, so he stopped coming around. We just sent him the profits every few weeks. The other members of the staff were part timers who had other more lucrative diversions, so they all became expendable. Eventually, Bill and I became the principle operators.

We usually split the week according to golf dates and honey do lists. I usually worked the weekends, including some Fridays and Mondays, and played golf during the week, while he worked the weekdays.

So, each of us had to be adept at all aspects of the business. Not that it was difficult. One just needed to know the ins and outs of the job. There were balls to be picked up and washed, customers to appease, money to be counted and transferred, inventory to be controlled, soda machines to be maintained, etc. By and large, it was a simple and mundane job which I got a kick out of doing.

As time meandered by, I relished the memory of the interactions I had with the customers. Our customer base was mostly blue collar. They weren’t your typical golf elite. I really don’t know why most of them came out to the range other than to try to hit the jeep as we traversed the driving range picking up balls.

I had a few bad run-ins with the customers. Of course, if the owner had known about it, I would have been fired. But, since he never came around, he was oblivious to my dark side.

One lazy summer afternoon, I nonchalantly walked up and down the hitting area picking up the baskets which the customers left after hitting the balls. I noticed that the only customer hitting balls at that point in time wasn’t hitting range balls. He was hitting regular golf balls, albeit used and scarred. I approached him and told him that he shouldn’t be hitting those cut balls out into the range, because I would have to pick all of them out and discard them during the process of cleaning the regular driving range balls. He became indignant and said that Bill let me do it all the time. My response was that Bill wasn’t there right now and I didn’t appreciate his actions.

He abruptly walked to his car and left. I thought to myself that I hadn’t heard the last of this. Sure enough, after less than ten minutes had passed, he called me on the phone. He didn’t identify himself in any manner, but I recognized his voice immediately. He asked nonchalantly if he could speak to the owner. I told him that the owner wasn’t around. He said that he wanted the owner’s phone number of that he could discuss an idea he had for the range. I told him that the owner had an unlisted number which I wasn’t privy to, and as a matter of fact, he was living in another state.

At this point, the customer went ballistic on the phone. He let out with a barrage of curse words the magnitude of which I hadn’t heard since I was in the military. He threatened to come back out to the driving range and beat me to a pulp. I had a couple of choices. I could either respond in kind, or just let him disperse his anger to the wind by not responding in any manner. I chose the latter, and after a few seconds of silence, he hung up the phone, and I never heard from him again. I knew at some level of consciousness that if he didn’t have the nerve to confront me in person the first time, then he didn’t have the nerve to come back to the driving range and challenge me in any manner.

So, I took the words of Eckhart Tolle to heart and didn’t feed his ego which was lashing out at me because of some perceived wrong in his own past. I knew that he wasn’t angry at me, but was frustrated with his own life’s direction and was trying to draw me into his relentless battle with his own fragile ego.

… Plus, I didn’t feel that it was prudent to stick my finger into the eye of a wounded deer, no matter how docile.

In another customer encounter, I wasn’t as lucky at protecting my own fragile ego. Four youths came in one day, ordered four large buckets and dutifully paid in full. They weren’t my normal clientele, but, since I had their cash, I felt comfortable.

After about an hour, the four youths sauntered back into the dispersion booth and started up a casual conversation about the weather. I thought that was strange because I knew that they couldn’t care less about my opinion on any subject.

Quickly, their true motives surfaced. One of the youths asked me if he could have a cold soda. My response was “Sure, that will be a dollar.” The youth looked at me sternly and responded, “I don’t have a dollar. Listen, man, we paid beacoups for those crappy balls, so why don’t you just give me the soda?”

At that point, I knew I was in some kind of trouble. Since I was alone and it was four against one, my survival instincts kicked in. I responded as nonchalantly as I could, “Okay, take one. And, share it with your buddies.”

One of the other youths chirped, “Hey, I not be sharin’ nothin’ wit nobody. It’s hot, and we’re tapped out. How about we all get a free soda?”

I immediately responded, “Sure, no problem. Consider it a discount on the balls.”

All four quickly reached into the cooler, grabbed the biggest and most expensive sodas and then exited the trailer.

They were gone in a flash. I reached into my pocket, pulled four dollars out and inserted the money into the cash register so that the inventory control would be accurate.

I felt humiliated and emasculated. Now, I knew how that guy who I castigated for hitting his own golf balls felt. Man, what goes around, comes around. I noted to myself to remember that encounter and not inflict that emotional pain on anyone else.

And… I thought that I might need to grow some gonads, quick…