I was sitting on the bench near the mosque this morning with my coffee, and two young men were arguing about politics — one saying the government is finished, the other saying things could be worse. They weren't listening to each other at all, just waiting for the other to stop talking so they could start again. This is what I see everywhere now, not just in the park. People have opinions like they have teeth — they show them without thinking about what they bite into. In my sixty-two years I have learned that a conversation that starts hot ends nowhere. The old men on my street, we sit quiet for long minutes. Then someone says something small and true. That is where something grows. These boys will learn this or they will carry anger their whole lives, and I do not know which one is worse.
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