Yesterday, the family went to the local Ren Fest. It was fun, we ate different things than usual (burnt sugar almonds!), went on rides (mine was on a camel with the 5 year old), and admired all the olde curiosities.
One small incident stuck out.
My daughter who is a veterinarian was checking her messages. One of the Ren Fest actors stopped to half-jokingly admonish her about using her "magic box" and thereby miss the life around her.
Okay, I understand that the participants, this one a fellow in green velvet and wearing a gentleman's hat with a perky feather waving above it, are supposed to stay in character during their interactions with the public attendees. It's fun when they do that. The fellow probably thought she was doping off in the middle of 'his' world, created by hard work to create an amusing alternative fiction. He felt protective of his project. Part of me can see that.
With this exchange (and thinking over others during Ren Fest visits in years past) I had an odd feeling of déjà vu, but concerning political discussions, especially recently. Reading what some of my Facebook friends share, much of it seeming to me to be willful hyperbole, outdated information, or partisan mockery, is like talking to a Ren Fest actor. No matter how hard I try to explain a position in real-world discussions -- politely, I might add, but probably too earnestly -- I don't have the charisma that will make them stop and look up at the machine producing the fairy bubbles.
In real-world interactions, the harder I try to provide facts that feel objective (no highly partisan links, no 'shouting,' no links to Jon Stewart), the harder they try to maintain the 'character,' to stay in the world that feels so comfortable to them. We must all do that to some degree because that's how people 'work.' The denial of reality, though, gets scary when some of their vigorous (and well-funded) partners-in-thought have the federal government of the United States idling while the 'actors' ride along on their figuratively white horses, ready to joust, as if the Ren World were reality.
I'd stop, in order to save each of us a lot of irritation, if it didn't feel so important.
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