As much as I love autumn (and that’s a lot), I found myself not so fond of it this past weekend. With the temperature finally trying harder to stay cooler, my HVAC system was not running for long periods of time, which should be a relief when the electric bill arrives. But that meant the outside noise levels got worse (as I sit here editing this for the blog, that certain neighbor is at it again).

Already nursing sinusitis and a headache, I was not enjoying neighbors’ insistence on sharing their tunes with the whole street. Add to that the near-total lack of sleep Saturday night (thank you, earworms from “K-Pop Demon Hunters,” for your service to keeping my brain from letting me sleep), and Sunday could have been a total disaster.

I’ve said before that I’m wise enough to know I shouldn’t have a gun because of my bad temper and good aim (there’d be a lot of car sound systems around here that would develop holes if I had a gun), but that doesn’t mean I’m defenseless, especially considering the scythe and machete. Things could have gone horribly awry had I not taken advice from another earworm, “Just Breathe” from “In the Heights” (is there anything Lin-Manuel Miranda can’t do???) when a couple appeared on my porch Sunday morning offering to mow my yard.

Though I’m short of cash at the moment, when I had to run a sudden errand I handed over $30 to the couple in case they finished before I returned. The mower, still in my backyard as of this writing, seized up and is to be replaced with someone else’s borrowed mower. The yard hasn’t been mowed quite yet, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and hopefully it will be mowed by the time you read this, fingers crossed, though I admit I’m doubting it at the moment (between my allergies and still-recovering arm, I’m in no shape to handle it myself).

I might very well have lost that $30 with nothing to show for it, and it will be a lesson for me. However, I think that had I chosen not to have faith in humanity, it would have been far more serious.

We’ve gotten to the point where too many of us see life as a zero-sum game, which it’s just not. More rights for someone else doesn’t mean fewer rights for you (as the saying goes, it’s not pie); it simply means that someone who had to fight for the same rights you already enjoyed now gets the same privilege. It’s not about winning or losing political points—or at least it shouldn’t be—but about building a society where we take care of each other and treat others as we wish to be treated.

That doesn’t mean that merit shouldn’t be a factor, which some political pundits and others seem to think is what’s happening with DEI initiatives (Oh my freakin’ God, if I read one more disingenuous piece on DEI …). Consider that for a long time many had to fight for the right to the same education and work positions that have always been available to white males in our country, and how many were not able to break through despite their merits (plus how many are still not given the recognition they deserve for their work, such as Rosalind Franklin and the discovery of DNA’s structure). Consider the many contributions by women, minorities and LGBTQ+ members that you rely upon every day. (Do you really think you could go without windshield wipers or Wi-Fi, for example? And what about the women such as Katherine Johnson who did the calculations to get astronauts to and back from space safely, and the work of Alan Turing on algorithms and machines to crack the Germans’ Enigma codes?)

Consider the possibility that, say, a woman with a Ph.D. in astrophysics is more qualified to be an astronaut than Joe Schmo down the block who has all the dialogue from “Apollo 13” memorized, makes rockets from kits in his backyard, and once completely rebuilt a 1967 Mustang (an extreme example, I know, but you’d be amazed how many random guys try to mansplain physics to female astrophysicists/astronauts/physiologists, etc., online).

Perhaps we should be focused on actual qualifications in hiring decisions (true blind judging, based on background and qualifications only before it ever gets to the interview stage; you know, actual merit that would probably disqualify more men than the DEI haters would want to admit) than gender identification, race/ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, political party affiliation or any of a multitude of other things that have nothing to do with the job so we don’t have wholly unqualified people making life-and-death decisions for the rest of us.

Not that that’s happening in our government. (Sarcasm font needed, especially for anything involving RFKJ!)

On a smaller scale, we need to get back to the idea that society can work if we just treat others as we wish to be treated. Have a little faith in your fellow humans; if they prove your faith misplaced, consider it a lesson learned, but don’t let it harden you, and don’t apply it to anyone but those who failed you. (For example, if that couple doesn’t show back up, it’s only them I won’t trust to do the job, not just any person who offers to mow; the last guy did a really good job, but I failed to get his contact information, and that’s on me.) I’d wager that most of the time your faith will be rewarded, and you’ll still learn something: that honesty and the benefit of the doubt are of great value in rebuilding relations between people.

Those of us in the middle have spent too long over the past couple of decades watching others breaking into perpetually angry (seriously, how can people live like that?) tribes and waging rhetorical wars on those with whom they disagree. They’ve brought us to the point where compromise on anything is seen as capitulation to evil rather than what it always was in the past: an agreement that best serves the most people in society, and where no one gets everything they want, but they at least get something.

That tribal attitude has been working its way down for a while now, and it’s honestly a bit disturbing at times, especially online, how much hostility there is to the Golden Rule. It’s almost like these people know how they treat others and don’t want to be treated like that (again, sarcasm font is needed) … although it does give them the opportunity to play victim. And boy, do they.

Still, let’s at least make an effort, if only for the opportunity to grow as individuals. Say hi to that noisy neighbor. Give someone a hand with a task they can’t or don’t have the time to do. Help a stranger.

If we’re lucky, we’ll start to rebuild trust in each other and maybe get back to functionality as a society.

True, it’s not much, but it’s something, and right now, we should be willing to give anything a try, especially that which calls on our humanity.

We have to hope it’s not gone.