Encroachment

I wonder if it’s the spring weather that’s making us feel feisty.

Or perhaps it’s the rising water levels. Is there the sensation of feeling trapped, anxiety mingling into our lives now that a walk on the beach is not an option for unwinding?

It could just be that the weird and wonderful social crutch that is Facebook is leaving us feeling a little more alienated than usual, while at the same time providing us the boldness necessary to kick up a fracas.

Whatever is causing it, it’s definitely in the air, this antagonism, this unkindness, this compulsive opposition. And it’s not helpful.

(I’ll interject in my own thesis here: I believe in opposition. Questioning the courses of actions of the powers that be is a fundamental part of a functional democracy, and should never be discouraged. That said, there’s a difference between thoughtful opposition and a childish insistence on saying ‘no’ just because.)

But perhaps there’s something a little more meaningful and insidious than springtime angering people as we bicker over housing, over parking spaces and public space.

It might be that the anxiety we’re feeling isn’t coming from the encroaching lake, but from a different kind of crowding, and one that won’t recede in June.

I haven’t lived around here very long, so my short-sightedness might be forgiven, but what I see is that here-we-go-again feeling as strangers flood the shores of the County. They bring money, they bring business, and they bring jobs, sure. But they signify both a cultural and socio-economic change that is bound to cause tension.

In other words, things are changing and people are angry. It’s a natural human reaction to change. Sometimes it’s justified, like when life becomes oppressively unaffordable and housing becomes difficult to find. Sometimes it’s just a mounting irritation over minor things like increased car, bicycle and foot traffic.

Either way, it’s easy for angry people to lash out at the wrong thing, to criticize a perceived problem instead of a real one.

And it’s also easy for angry people to be unkind. To make comments that undercut others in their community. We’ve all been guilty of it at some point.

This is especially true for folks like me and my colleagues, who have an entire separate medium from which to criticize the wrong problems and to be unkind, if we’re not careful.

I am resolving to be kinder. To ask more questions, and get at the real problems, when I can—- let’s face it, some problems are just too complex to be solved with a pointed finger and a prescribed solution.

And I invite those who are feeling that encroachment, be it spring or water or strangers or something else altogether, to do the same. The Internet provides temptation to be unkind. But the pool of Prince Edward County is a shallow one. Even within the world of the computer screen, we are all neighbours.

mihal@mihalzada.com