A friend of mine often thinks of people and situations as fish and bait. For example, about my entrance into life in Portland, it is said that I was the bait and that other people were the fish. I’m not sure I like being thought of as bait, nor do I like thinking of other people as bait either. I like to think of myself as a person, and other people as people as well, all worthy of respect, and all with our own stories and backgrounds and contexts. In some cases, in different ways, people can be both fish and bait, even if one does not necessarily want to be either. What makes one bait and what makes one a fish in the situations of life?

In the eyes of my friend, when someone is bait, they are being put through a trial largely for the benefit of learning for others. One tries to catch fish, after all, by using bait, and so bait provides education for others, often painfully. In my life I have been both bait and the fish, and I find both experiences rather painful. Being the fish, and learning from one’s scars after being ensnared by one’s enjoyment of bait, is not fun, as might be imagined. People can suffer a great deal as a result of their lack of caution and good sense. Certainly wisdom can result from such experiences, but it is wisdom earned at an expensive price, often with a great loss of peace and mind and a sense of comfort and safety. Sometimes such wisdom can cost us our freedom, our possessions, or even our lives. My own folly in different aspects of life has threatened me with some pretty serious consequences, something that leads me into reflection. Certainly, I know I am not alone in that.

Life is not fun at bait, at all, though, either. As bait, you are put in a place to draw out other people and to allow them to show their true character by being in danger. Sometimes people show themselves to be honorable and decent despite very unpleasant situations in life, and it is gratifying to see people behave nobly in times of great stress. I would like to hope that in those occasions where I have been in harm’s way that I have showed myself to be of noble and honorable character. I also know that I have hated it whenever someone else was in danger, or even felt as if they were in danger, because of any action of mine. I know that such moments are not entirely unknown either, as much as I hate it, and I am glad to see when others are able to handle their own difficult situations with grace.

The experience of being fish and bait is very different. For a fish, there is the worry about whether what one pursues is actually something worth seeking, or whether one is risking getting caught in a trap. At times our longings outweigh our good sense and our caution, and all too often we can find out all too late that what we thought was potentially enjoyable was instead a major hazard. Likewise, we can be going about our lives blissfully unaware that we are being put into harm’s way, and that our safety and well-being depends at least in part on the character and decency of others. That is not an enjoyable place to be either, speaking from experience, because one can suffer a lot of harm when people are not decent and honorable.

Although we can learn much by being either fish or bait, we would, of course, rather be neither of them. Some people would prefer to be the fisherman, using bait in order to catch fish. I have always found fishing to be a frustrating task, though requiring a great deal more silence than I am able to muster for periods of time. For those who know me, silence does not tend to come very easily when I am around others, at least not a happy and calm sort of silence, the kind that is useful for fishing. Instead, I have had to choose whether I prefer being the target or the bait. Truth be told, there has to be a better way. Finding it, as always, is a more difficult matter.