Pick your battles

The streets are relatively safe to ride, but any group larger than three has its own dynamic. At that point there are only two ways you can turn. Up or down.

Evening falls. W rides his board on a concrete slab through the park. Three lamp posts down the path two girls stand like amateur hookers. Some primitive force crawls up his spine and sends his attention through the bushes where he sees three young predators lurking in the dark. Make no mistake - this is no time to be a hero. W remembers one of the few lesson that stuck by him from high school - there is no free lunch unless you are the lunch.

The smallest possible reaction to any of the two girls will spring the ambush. There is only one method to escape gang violence. Bypass your initial fear based response and make contact. W knows this and pushes off to gather speed, steering towards girl number one.

‘Hey. Stop. How old are you?’ the girl says.

W rolls past her, faces girl #2. ‘She likes you. Now they’re going to beat you up.’ W looks over girl #2’s shoulder and sees the boys tumble out of the bushes. They fight amongst themselves as the girls scream obscenities. Groups are idiots. As W shoots out of their orbit, he swallows a shot of adrenaline mixed with killer-karma. He knows he’s safe and puts the fight in his head into the flight of his board. Best wear pads next time.

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I want to share with you not my beliefs or points of view, but my experience, the stories that make up my everyday life as a mediator. Let me explain why.

Things move fast, change quickly, make it difficult to form opinions about current events. So many people claim authority. So little truth survives the MTV-style editing of mass media. The bigger the picture, the bigger the tragedy. So why add to the confusion? Why tell people what to think? Why create a future if you can reinvent the past?