A friend (who I’d not suspected harboring ill sentiment) once injected the term “tick” at someone she didn’t like. 

Caught in “huh” mode, I thought of ticking (material) or a credit (tick) mark or being ticked off. (Tick lacking tock might be a half-wit.) 

Wasn’t any of that, I learned on asking. She clarified, “Wood tick, a human two-legged bloodsucker.” 

Beyond age 10 a person has likely encountered a two-legged tick or two. That kind of tick-person isn’t your usual biter, such as the upfront fly or mosquito going after a taste of ear. The tick-person is a lower sort. Like vampires and leeches, the tick uses sneaky stealth to dig in and engorge. Nasty. 

My latest meeting with a deer tick brought two weeks on antibiotics. The human tick is more devastating because it preys on trust.

Do I like to think of or call other citizens ticks? Not at all, but they are out there, those who lay in wait lurking for a chance to latch on and feed. Displeasing as the notion is, they’re out there, equal, in my view, with bottom feeders and carrion eaters. 

Come to think, however, we might run out of odious parasite comparisons if we add dealers in half-truth or deception. Being honest we’d have to reintroduce lice and fleas along with round, ring and tape worms to enumerate all the feasters aimed at crown, gut and foot. Sad to say, but if nature wants to eat us you can count on many of our own kind happy to do the same.

Taking the inventory or stock of others is useful but dangerous. Useful in providing personal experience to avoid the con. Dangerous because judgment is a serious game: Judge not lest ye be judged. I think that’s a decent caution. 

But how far do we let cautions go? I don’t like the notion of Ten Commandments in public buildings, but their absence provokes another troubling scene where standards are vacated. 

Anyway, cautions do seem to work. A video camera as a form of caution someone’s watching. The movie industry cautions us about piracy. If experience and caution are cast aside, then what? If no one watches and fewer care what happens? Feet on the furniture, pets in the bed, dishes all over and fewer bother to flush. Better world? 

Do I have answers? No. I don’t know how morality or ethicality work other than a firm suspicion that hardly any amount of outside force or reminder makes up for self-discipline. As Mark Twain put it, “Individual honesty isn’t real until there are no witnesses.” That’s a real test.

Another test (especially for me) comes in the form of stated or defined morals, especially tricky when it comes to things like hate speech or bullying or teasing. 

In human society people push, test, tease and rankle one another all the time. We are bothersome creatures. Then again, life is full of bothers. Look at a pond. What happens to most of the frog eggs? Many-many get ‘et.

Watch what awaits the survivors when a heron arrives. Defenseless polliwogs stand little chance against a beak able to spear and swallow on a production basis. 

Rough as it seems and objectionable as some hold it, being hassled for this-that-other leads to a constructive practice if when the target learns to respond with a valid defense. 

In junior high I had to get over feeling hurt by needling questions such as “Your mother dress you funny?” 

Very annoying and off-putting were such questions, but then came the day when an answer boiled up. “NO. I picked this myself. What’s your excuse?” 

If nothing else, being challenged nudges the individual to question what and why they’re doing. Learning to avoid poor decisions isn’t a solo event. We cast about to feel our way forward. The notion that life should be placid and supportive is false. If you want a peaceful life it won’t be found among the living. As the ancient Greeks said, “Only the dead know peace.”

Being clunked on the noggin by many a straight-ahead Ranger caused me many a fret and fume. But wasn’t just them doing it. Everywhere I went there was some form of challenge, obstacle or difficulty to get over or around or past. 

We can trace back dates on human societies and civilizations fairly far, but for argument let’s say we’ve had 10,000 years to create Shangri-La. Where is it? What became of it? If it was good and perfect and better than anything else why didn’t it spread out like the Khans, Ottoman or British empires? 

My point is: challenge, resistance and difficulty are unavoidable AND necessary. My (hopefully) great idea needs be tested, feet to the fire, etc. If you produce a new shampoo it has to, and will, be tested in ways reasonable and preposterous. How it work when frozen or where there’s no water? 

Wanting to never face hearing “dumb idea” or “stupid” is not a way forward. Ease is sloth is a lot like being inert.

Some readers, I suppose, bristle and object to being told to accept difficulty. OK. Does that mean they will never call-think their opposition slime-ball liars? Hah! I’m not fooled. Bleeding heart kindness is intended to apply most to those espousing it. 

Plus, I find the habit intellectually lazy (meaning me-you-all of us). It’s easier and nicer and sweeter and more peaceable, etc. if there’s no opposition, no challenge, no contest. A time past a writer noticed growing up was difficult and wrote a theme around the notion to give us Peter Pan. But, did an ageless fantasy put an end to aging? It did not. 

A wishful notion doesn’t halt the clock with every passing hour being absolutely and fundamentally irredeemable. Basics don’t change. Wearing a party hat will neither stop nor cure cancer.

In the diversity of society we praise there will and must be opposition voices. We need them. Without we are lesser. Take if from a dumb Polack smiling as he thinks “stupid like a fox.”