Splitting Hairs

 

     “The truth is an arrow, and the gate is narrow that it passes through…” Bob Dylan

***

      Splitting hairs…we do it all the time, splitting differences, compromising on this or that, keeping peace as best we can. If we can grasp the metaphor, the ‘hair’ is the truth, and the closer we get to it, the hotter things get.

      We’re sitting around the table, three guys, eating hot wings, chewing the fat and dissecting ‘hot’ topics, topics like monetary policy, ‘supreme’ court values and certain women. We’re not looking for consensus. It can’t be found, especially in discussing women.

      Now ‘chewing the fat’ is not a literal description of male discourse, maybe ‘hashing things out’ is more decorously put. But proper decorum is not part of the male makeup yet. Female attempts to accomplish this transition have so far only resulted in utter failure and have driven the proclivity underground.  

      Idiomatic ‘Southernisms’ aren’t heard rolling off the tongues of women. Only the more subtle roll-offs like, “Now really, how do you feel about such and such, or this or that?” Such opens the discussion, but then they step back, see where it leads. Money is an unmentionable subject…people are fair game. So much for my knowledge of a woman’s means of splitting hairs.   

      Back to the table. We dispense with football scores, yesterday’s stock market report and move on to past college-days exploits, all duly embellished. Then money takes the stage.

      Now there is a lot of hairs to be split, but when it’s all sorted out, it’s money, money for scores as well as sustenance. So much so that one might say that the ‘hair’ is not only ‘truth,’ but ‘money’ is as well.

      I recall a mediation I attended to split hairs with a fellow who had claimed he had been wronged. He wouldn’t accept the fact that he was plain dumb with his money. No, he wanted a pound of flesh and a venue to air his complaint by blaming fifteen folks who were part of a so-called clandestine ‘conspiracy.’ The odds were poor for him, but he was stubborn and plowed on without a full knowledge of the facts.

      In mediations the purpose is to arrive at the truth, and the truth is usually measured in money and who gets to pay. As the Book of Ecclesiastes so succinctly puts it, “Wine maketh merry, but money answereth all things.” Read it for yourself.

      Anyway, when the fat hit the fire, his facts were fiction. The insurance company’s rep lay quietly back in the weeds, cringing, hopeful of a resolution before he was called upon to pay the tariff.  The verdict? The mediator split the hair. The insurance company paid half; the fellow ate the other half. Justice affirmed.  

      No one understood better how to split hairs with money than my daddy.  That story shortly.

      One of the most vivid pictures of splitting hairs was when King Solomon, the Divinely-anointed Arbiter of Truth in the tribe, set the standard for it.

      Two women argued over who was the real mother of a baby. He resolved the case simply by calling for a sword, whereupon he proposed to cleave the baby in half and give each woman half. You know the rest of that story. 

      But life is not all about money or cleaving babies in half to resolve disputes. In fact, it’s mostly about the small things that get resolved every day. Simple things, like what’s for lunch, or who gets to do the grocery shopping, or a book review, or which tv show to watch. The ‘hair’ of truth is just not that difficult to split.

      Back to my daddy’s hair-splitting on the issue of money some years ago.

      “Son, things are getting expensive. I bought your mother a birthday present. It cost $200.00.”

      “Hey, dad, that’s nothing. Why, we eat more for lunch than that.”

      He looks puzzled, confused as to how his son has become so profligate. Depression-era people like him could make a good lunch off of saltines and a can of sardines.

      But the man had balance, you can say that for him, and conflict resolution talents. He looked at me for about 16 seconds before replying.

      “Well, son, I guess $200 won’t buy much these days, but it’s sure is hard to come by.”  It takes a razor to split a hair with more finesse than this.

      And I knew right then that this was the last time he’d ever finance me out of the ditch of debt.

***

      Good luck with whatever hair you’re splitting, and remember, “The truth is an arrow, and the gate is narrow that it passes through.”

 

 Bud Hearn

September 30, 2020