In recent weeks, I've been thinking about what it means to be true to oneself, one's principles, etc., and I kept holding off because I didn't figure my ideas were well-formed enough to write at length. But then I figured, at the current rate, they may never be, so write now.

I've often reflected on the fact that we're very often defined more by what we hate or shun than by what we love and profess. It's an essential irony. It seems that what we hate and/or fear in others is almost invariably an aspect of ourselves that we don't want to look at, or is something we fear becoming, something we are separated from by the thinnest of barriers, self-control.

There was a folk singer in Phoenix (well, I'd assume he's still here, although I haven't heard much about him in at least 7 or 8 years) who was a rampaging crusader against the politics of groupthink. Committees and organizations had a tendency to deaden the process of promoting folk music, he reasoned. The groups became more about politicking and power-mongering and less about artistic expression and cultural preservation.

And yet everything he wrote and published, and indeed anywhere his name appeared in print, it was followed by a string of acronyms signifying all of the organizations of which he was a member.

Are these exceptions or hypocrisy?

I'd have to say both. I've come to understand that, to a certain extent, hypocrisy is a necessary part of human society. It seems impossible to adhere totally to one's principles and beliefs. Practicality and social interaction temper our beliefs. Students of psychology call this cognitive dissonance, at least when the disparity between belief and action are extreme and when a person can't adequately reconcile the two.

So, what to do? Say to hell with everyone else and go live in a cave? It worked for Thoreau, after a fashion and for a short time. But ultimately I don't think it does anyone much good. Principles are ideals, superlatives that can be approached and aimed for, but never reached, unless you're either a saint or a madman/fanatic. And since I don't know anyone possessing sufficient hubris to call him- or herself a saint, that leaves fanatics, madmen and hypocrites.

Sound like a horrible state of affairs? Maybe. But reflect on this.

Even Gandhi, at one point, voiced his opinion that the Palestinian people had a natural right to their fight for independence from Israel (although let me make it very clear here, by way of disclaimer, that I'm not claiming he ever said suicide bombers would make a great war strategy.

Daily life is a constant struggle, for those who think about it, to balance action and principle. And the best we can hope for is that we strike the right balance, and that those who seek to judge us pluck the splinters from their own eyes before pointing out the specks in ours.