Chalk and Cheese
Ministerial Meandering
Chalk and cheese
I can’t say with all honesty that I have ever eaten a piece of chalk, but in my schooldays, we used to pretend that we were smoking cigarettes using a piece of white chalk; occasionally one would ingest a little. I have no doubt that it may have had some value in treating heartburn - but as a tasty snack, it didn’t come top of the list. On the other hand, I have discovered rock-hard substances in various refrigerators that I have owned over the years, which would have made a significant impression on the school blackboard, and can only have once been some form of cheese; ancient Parmesan, most likely.
Both contain calcium, of course, so why should we use the expression - ‘as different as chalk and cheese’ - when there are (at least) chemical similarities?
The expression is used, more often than not, to describe two individuals who are so dissimilar that it is hardly surprising that they don’t get along. My experience of life is rather different.
It seems to me that it is often the two persons that are so alike that fight and compete so fiercely. There is almost a twin rivalry that sets the two off against each other from the start. It has been said that ‘opposites attract, but similars marry’. Is that what we find? Not often, in my experience. When two similar personalities cohabit, each wants to ‘be their own person’ - and if that has to be the same as their partner’s - there’s going to be trouble!
I have found more harmony in households where the two protagonists are of different flavours and temperaments; where there is opportunity to blend strange spices together.
It is true that many partnerships will have come from similar backgrounds - even similar geographical areas - but that in no way predicts similar personalities.
Life has taught me that appreciating the same things - art, literature, music, - is what fills theatres and concert halls. But it is not a dating agency. Learning about personality is a tricky business and will take a lifetime. I’m still finding things out about my wife that have been hidden for years - and from both of us! It is true that we both contain calcium - but we’re as different as chalk and cheese.
This does not mean that we are incompatible - after all, irrespective of skin colour, every marriage is a ‘mixed’ marriage; and as Forrest Gump’s mother told him; ‘Life is like a box of chocolates - you never what you’re going to get!’
The same is true of us as human beings. There are people we just don’t seem to be able to rub along with. Until we try.
One of the things we had to do in ‘leadership training’ in the Royal Navy was to to build teams with very disparate persons - one of whom was usually a complete ‘no-hoper’, and would need to be ‘carried’ through every exercise (sometimes literally) to ensure that the whole team completed the task. Even some of the most unlikely people would come up with a skill that no-one else had, and at the most unlikely moment. There were, of course, those who were truly ‘no-hopers’, and a complete waste of rations - and then our job was to make sure that we carried them through to the end of the exercise, so that the entire team was seen to complete - before we buried them.
People can get along, even when they are very different personalities. But sometimes it takes quite an effort and biting of the lip to control the initial response. Given time, we can find that all sorts of trees grow in the forest, and even those with the toxic fruit or bark will be giving something back to the soil.
So don’t be too quick to judge - chalk and cheese can get along.
Philip+