Heh. Given the post below, I had to note this:

I now have the perfect thing to say when a discussion gets heated and I don't really want to take part:

"I like pie."

Apparently it's what all the cool kids are saying when they don't want to rise to someone's argument-bait.

(It probably comes from some massively silly movie that I've not seen, and would be horrified to find it as a quote from if I knew. Like one of the "unrated" versions of a Farrelly Brothers movie. But I like the ability of being able to smile and say something cheerfully neutral when people around me are getting all het up.)

But it works so nicely, given the fondness of certain people who have to attend the same meetings as I do to get onto some kind of a hobbyhorse where agreeing with them might paint you as a kook, but disagreeing with them would make you an enemy for life. Or given the way political discourse goes. Or given the fact that there are a few situations I am in where two people must work together (and with me) who vehemently dislike each other.

So "I like pie" may sound a little dim. But on a more philosophical level, you could see it as an affirmation of the Good Things of life, and a recognition that the unpleasantness of Now (whatever that unpleasantness may be) is at worst transitory. Perhaps even it could help one to visualize the Platonic Ideal of pie (which in my mind is always apple. Well, when it's not green-tomato mincemeat) rather than the shadows of the world we actually inhabit.

I just wish I had known the Tao of Pie last week, when I was in a meeting, where two people were arguing pro and con on a policy where I could genuinely see both sides. (And as group secretary, I had to take down all of the discussion).