Over the last several years Mike Wells has written nearly 200 “On the Way to the Courthouse” pieces. Many of them are published in various state and local publications as well, including the North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, the Winston-Salem Journal, the North Carolina State Bar Quarterly, and the Clemmons Courier. Selections of them have also been recorded for the Winston-Salem affiliate of National Public Radio and for the North Carolina National Public Radio network.
Character Arc Law
All of us who are fathers remember well the day each of our children was born. But I doubt we remember much if anything about the day before.
I remember one of those before days, but for another reason.
I represented a client in a hotly contested domestic case years ago before there was mandatory mediation of most trial cases in North Carolina. Against my better judgment (and this case taught me to trust more my better judgment), I took the case based on the referral to me of a good client. My new client and her husband were in their second marriage, and with no children to buffer their anger, my client and her husband focused their energy and resources on the disagreement and vitriol with each other. Less worried about money concerns, they proclaimed to be in the battle until the end.
We picked a jury, and the day before our youngest child was born the more-hateful husband finally agreed to settle the case. But not before all manner of nasty and mean-spirited actions on both sides.
As I approach each year the birthday of our now-grown baby boy, I always think about the highly combative experience of that case. But I think about it more so this year.
The increasingly toxic conditions in any number of important relationships in all of our lives have made me wonder aloud about the power of anger and strident opinions if they are not buffered more by common sense and a healthy respect for the other person and their different point of view.
There is a concept in literature that speaks of the character arc of a story that is relevant here to this growing dilemma. It is the journey of the central character over the course of the narrative. And often the character of the central figure changes for the better, too.
But sometimes a story has a not so happily-ever-after ending, which we know well as a Tragedy, which may be the sad side of this character arc narrative in which we are increasingly finding ourselves.
Maybe we need to step away from the angst and anger we carry about “the others,” whoever we categorize “the others” to be, and re-examine the deep qualities and principles that got us here as productive citizens, and as a nation, in the first place. Because if rational and thoughtful citizens and the nation they honor and revere begin to lose their essential and defining character, it is a Tragedy of significant proportions.
There is enough blame to go around about where and when it started, truth be told, so there is no real value or purpose in casting one side or the other as the Bad Guy. Sadly, we all are the Bad Guys to one degree or the other in this true tragedy.
“Divide and conquer” is a well-known strategy which dates to the Greeks (Phillip of Macedon), but it applies in all manner of circumstances beyond military battles. An accepted concept of division and sometimes destruction which has been proven over and over for centuries should be treated with respect. If our considerable strengths as a nation and as a people of good will and open debate are turned on ourselves so we adopt a true tribal mindset, it would be our own ironic and destructive tragedy.
“Out of many, one” is our country’s unique and unifying answer to history. It is the special genius which shapes us. But we delude ourselves if we fail to see it is increasingly at risk.
“The times have found us,” Thomas Paine cautioned us in another time. It is not too much to suggest the times may have found us again. So we sure better fight for who we are, because our principles and core values are being shaped and potentially redefined now on our watch.
What I have learned about life on the way to the courthouse is this: all key relationships—husband and wife, life partners, friends and even countries and its citizens—have their own character arc. You don’t have to be in locked battle in court as my long-ago client was to recognize we can be in our own season of discontent, too, and it can have a deep and damaging impact. It would help us if we can learn to disagree without demonizing those with a different opinion.
Otherwise, the most distinguishing values we hold dear are going to be eroded away. We will be no different than anyone else. The kinder and gentler nation a cherished president challenged us to be will just be an empty phrase. And the symbolic torch of light and hope of the Statue of Liberty in NY harbor, and the powerful image that we are all points of light in a great country, will in time be snuffed out and shuttered dark.
What will distinguish us then?