Have you ever been someplace after a severe wind storm? You see the ground littered with debries, including shattered trees. Most often those trees are the hard woods....oak, cherry, something olong that line. The softer wood, like pine or willow, survives in many cases. It does this by bending in the winds, allowing the onslaught to twist it, turn it, bend it until the force is spent and it returns to its upright position. Now, even this elasticity can be overcome with enough force but......wouldn't it be nice if people were more like trees?

Metal is the same way. Take Swords for instance.....Europeans forged Broadswords as a single unit...they were hard and unbending and often the quality of the steel as well as the skill of its weilder determined how long it lasted in a fight. It was akin to a sharpened and unyeilding steel bar. Now Demascus Steel and the steel in Japanese swords or Katanas were folded or Laminted, which made the blades very flexible, very strong and allowed for an edge of unparalleled sharpness to be placed on it. They could withstand hideous amounts of kenetic energy being transferred thru them because of their innate flexibility. They also cut steel, flesh and bone as easily as air in the hands of an experienced swordsman. These swords would be in families for generations. As with the tree, it is better to be flexible then to be unyeilding.

That all said, Compromise is the flexibilty of life. It comes in many forms and it is finite in its ability to prevent lasting harm. A Compromise infers the meeting of two people at a common point acceptable to both.....where neither gets exactly what they want but both are at least partially happy. Funny how that word seems to no longer have meaning in our lives......no one can accept that they were wrong. Personally, professionally, politically....its there, everyday. Why don't people talk? Because really, there is no point.

With the Death of Compromise, the Death of Civilization....of Society can't be far behind.