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Long past, in a fit of wanting to fit in and be accepted (didn’t last long) I followed a slug of older boys to a vacant-lot ballfield. Having a healthy survival instinct, seeing a ball thrown my way I dodged. The others yowled what was wrong with me, “Catch it!” 

Why? 

Would I get to keep it? 

The game made little sense to little me until came time to bat. I loved the bat (mine approved by Minnie Minosa) as a worthy instrument for silencing those yelling at me to do things. I’d charge. They’d run. Now that was a game! 

I was soon, however, ousted from the neighborhood teams. No one would have me. I kept the bat handy, in case.

I’m not trying to be cute or clever or make a case excusing childhood violence. At this moment you are making of the events described what you will. Anti-social behavior. Attention deficit disorder. Wild child. Overly protected. Vicious little monster. 

I didn’t know, either, nor did parents as mystified as I. “What’s wrong with the boy?” I was curious myself.

A woman with a moustache (Felician Order teaching nun) figured it out when I was eight. She sent me home with a note. “Boy needs glasses.” 

Turned out I did. Able to do desk work well enough, to me the blackboard was the moon’s far side. 
With glasses, things began making sense, including the balls I’d once been told to catch. Having batted a few too many neighbor boys I remained banned, but improved schoolwork was welcome, despite the annoying “four-eyes” epithet, for which a practiced bat was ready to instruct the unwary.

Non-identical, each of us has individual qualities, such as good or poor vision. But, there’s more. We each have our own aptitudes or inclinations. 

After finally seeing the board clearly I had no better luck with math. To me, might as well been hieratic up there. Huh? 

One’s mental skills and weak areas can be reckoned with in no other way than head-on collision. It was thus, the good ol’ hard way, I fell into the pit of being a digit mathematician. Ten fingers, ten toes, plus the male numeric advantage put my upper math limit at 21. 

Was there, I wondered staring at figures, any need for more? Believing not, I resolutely stuck to life within bounds as I knew them. There’d be no math honors headed my way.

Can we hold a cause or issue responsible for my lack of excellence? I doubt so. Each of us is, happy to say, left to progress on their own. 

Why happy? Because that seems better than injection into a mold concocted by others under the claim it is better, good or any other just causes the preachy provide promoting their form of misery as universal human good. 

I hopefully grasp the appeal of equity among humans, but wouldn’t we then be (some Rangers may never forgive me for this) Homo Homogeneous. Humanity Lite. To what level? Homogenized whole, two percent or skim?

Each of us different (fingerprints a sign) is there a settled, standardized difference-diversity score to apply? What is it? Who sets it? Most important, is it enforced? 

Not knowing your details, I’ll use my past as an example. OK? 

So, ages five through 15 how many major bone breaks are allowable? Four anyone? The first, in an auto accident, was not my responsibility. Three others, however. Lack of judgment (improved with age) and excess energy (also age modified) led to concussions, femur and (not at all funny) humerus. 

That too many? What’s acceptable? What could have been done to protect me from me? 

Being somewhat ahead of the curve breaking bone is part of me just as other things helped set you apart and form a part of who you are. Theoretical you or I could arguably have better outcomes. But imaginary “us” not existing, there’s no point arguing either outcomes or improvements.

And maybe, be patient a little longer, the thing to concern us isn’t what might be seen as wrong or unfair but the whacky lengths we go through to fix things. 

The more attention given to fixing what’s wrong means somewhat less attention to what’s OK. Seeking fairness in life is a no-win proposition that mostly delivers misery? Why? Simply, I ‘spect, because there’s no way to do what can never be done. 

Is it fair baby me was delivered into a secure family? 

First, I had no say in a distribution with many possible results. If I wasn’t responsible then, am I now? If so how much? What reparation for three-meals-a-day can I make? 

Some say I have a responsibility to help the less fortunate today. OK, but how, then, can I be recompensed for poor vision or not having the quick reflexes of an athlete or race driver? Yes, yes, that’s different, I know, but how ‘bout when math results were given why couldn’t I get some benefit from the success of better math students? They earned their grades and should keep them. 

OK, how is earning income different? Advantages of inherited wealth? Immigrant grandparents discriminated against as newcomers. A five cent per hour raise prompted my father to propose. If the inherited wealth concept is real then what about inherited responsibility?

As concepts go, a distinction between inherited wealth or opportunity and inherited (or assumed) responsibility is, as appears to me, simply this. Happily yapping about unfair advantages is a lot easier and less bothersome to the yapper than accepting the obligations of responsibility. 

Some parts of the North Country well recall difficult times. After all, if we remember the Minnesota DFL (Farmer-Labor) arose as a collective concept advocating rights and accepting responsibility. Think. Can you have one without the other? How far do rights without accountability go, and where? 

But in a foolish bad habit of simplifying to excess, I suggest seeking to fix things is a search for stasis, a condition uncomfortably similar to death. Long-gone Greeks said “Only death know peace.” Until ended, stopped or fixed, we have the challenging gift of living.