“It’s not true,” said Klára, “that proper scrambled eggs need a bit of sour cream to stay smooth. But you got narked because it’s your turn to cook.” Klára raised her voice.“That’s not true at all. Can you hear yourself? Can you hear what you’re saying? All I said was I don’t mind adding cream if it pleases you, and you can go and get ready, because today it’s me who is cooking,” countered Marek. “But the tone you were using …” – “Magdalena,” Klára is addressing me, “you should have heard him! Go and get ready, it’ll take you an hour anyway …” she said mimicking his supposed sarcasm.

I found myself a bit dumbfounded at this afternoon visit to my acquaintances, I had a feeling I was being absorbed by the sofa, disappearing, becoming invisible   … I was thinking about Buddha and his words that life is torment and Francis of Assisi who had said that people are much unhappier creatures than they seem at first glance. Except my detachment is provocative. The drama is being played out for me – the spectator and after the performance I am expected to change my role and become a judge who will rule on one or other version of the script.

Who am I visiting? In front of me there is a senior head manager and his wife – a lawyer, both educated, successful and wealthy people, who brought up two adult and content children. In principle they have a good relationship. If we paid attention to the content of the words used, we could erroneously arrive at the conclusion that it concerns the best way to prepare scrambled eggs. Nonetheless, the sample of the conversation clearly shows that it is about the relationship between themselves, respect and mutual recognition.

“Do you know why relationships most frequently fail?” I asked, also trying to divert their attention. I had silenced them; they stared at me in bewilderment. “The grounds for divorce in most marriage break-ups are not drugs, alcohol, violence and such, as we often imagine. The reason for most couples divorcing is communication or the lack of it. Thousands of little quarrels, which are so soul destroying. Arguments about which one of us is right. All these little battles will gradually poison the relationship like lethal parasites that crawl through every inch of your body. Apart from extreme cases the court then sees two quite nice people who couldn’t come to terms with each other.” I had caught their attention, so I went on exploiting the situation. “Why don’t you just drop it? Isn’t this all a bit pointless? If you looked at it through my eyes, you would see it’s a farce. You would laugh but at the same time your heart would ache”. Klára and Marek grinned, at first just a little, making sure the other one couldn’t see it, and then they started laughing out loud.

Dear friends, when you start quarrelling about whether it’s “mauve or purple”, please remember that in all fights for the truth the main thing isn’t if it was mauve or purple, but who will get the better of the other as in the case of Klára and Marek. The fastest acting medicine is humour. The Wise Devil in the performance of “The Pursuit of Unhappiness” says: “Fights for the truth really destroy human relationships perfectly. It works great, if you truly wish to end up all on your own”.