“There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chuses, and that is, his duty…”

“I cannot make speeches, Emma…If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”

Jane Austen, Emma

As I watch the news coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests, I find myself asking the most important question about it all, perhaps the one you are asking too:

Where are all of these people going to the bathroom?

I grew up in a home where conservatism was taught during the day and Bible stories were read at night. I intertwined the two, and from the youngest of ages believed in the holy virtue of hard work. What I recognized only later is the principle that occurs by default when one group is extolled–another will be judged. I did most things by default: I was a rule-follower, an instruction-seeker, a color-inside-the-lines type. So I obediently ascended the ladder set before me even as I scorned the base degrees by which I did ascend. The Sis and I rose early a few Saturdays, selling doughnuts door to door and using what few bad words we knew to curse The Dad’s entrepreneurial spirit; we found jobs at sixteen and showed up for them; we received college scholarships. I worked hard every day and developed my resume and my sense of duty, along with a sense of entitlement to accompany both: work hard, reap rewards. I missed, in all the fervor, the chip that brings passion and joy into that work. I arrived on time every day to school or the office to do my job, but I often brought a bad attitude with me.

Now I watch these protests and I realize that once again, Americans major in extremes as our political divisions drive our ideology. I find that my gut instinct is to tell these people to get a job. I want to yell at them to stop blaming other people, to push a mop or a pen or whatever they can find rather than piss on street corners and complain. And, as The Husband can attest, I do tell and yell. There is a sense of moral indignation within me that rises up anytime I see a hemp-necklaced, cargo-panted man on a mattress waxing philosophical about corporate greed. I want to find my student loan statement and shove it in his face.

Then I remember my own unemployment, the little boy I see on Thursdays who already knows the F word and visits playgrounds with broken swings, and I know that while right and wrong and us and them may be frequently-used words in the context of politics, there is something called grace that complicates humanity beyond that language.

Without grace, we all operate from a sense of entitlement. One group objectively measures its worth according to its accomplishments; another idealistically demands recognition for its passion and struggles. Politically, we each tend to fall to one end of the spectrum, but personally, a sense of duty leaves one cold without passion, and conversely, passion rings hollow without duty to accompany it: a suit without compassion vs. a protestor without direction.

I know which end of the spectrum feels most comfortable to me—which seems most right—but I also, thankfully, know the joy now of pursuing a dream that makes no sense; I’ve learned that it’s possible to be poor even while working hard (thank you, New York City). I vote one way and read another way: my favorite stories’ characters are those like Mr. Knightley, who delivers a speech on duty in one chapter and, later, finds himself at a loss for words when describing love. The complexity of a person who embraces virtue and feeling. Duty and passion side by side. I know of only One who ever accomplished the combination perfectly.