I don’t think I’m that much different from you, so I ask, are you finding it increasingly difficult to remain optimistic about individuals you know and fellow humans in general? Are you finding that in our current political climate it is nearly impossible to believe that someone has your back, that they even see you as a person with whom they can connect or converse?
I’m sadly feeling that no one is coming to our rescue and the harsher reality is no one has any desire to try and understand a different point-of-view. For me, if I give specific instances and acts that have put me and my well-being into direct peril, the people I tell refuse to see how it even matters to them. So I am left to wonder, do they really not have any concern as to how it may affect me and my well-being or is what I am hearing in their responses not a lack of caring, but a lack of understanding?
Let me step back for a moment and tell you a little bit about me. I’m a white, gay, college-educated male with an undergraduate degree in liberal arts and entering my sixth decade. I am comfortably middle class and have a partner (husband when it was finally legal) of 20+ years. I started working after school in the 9th grade, worked full-time during college, and then never stopped. My career has brought me all around the country for extended periods of time to live in both urban and rural communities of varying sizes.
When I was traveling for work, I loved being dropped into a new community in which I knew no one. At these places I was forced to make a new life for myself anywhere from 3 months to 2 years. And at every new assignment it meant I would have to gel with a new and disparate group of individuals to ensure we, as a team, did our best work. Working in financial services you speak a common language, but not everyone you encounter will have the same command of that language or the depth of knowledge and experience in its use. Sort of like life, no?
Now that you know me, let’s return to talking about these strange times we’re living in and what I hope to accomplish with my blog. I want to write about what it is like to engage with people you have known your whole life, but whose views make them almost strangers to you. These are people you inherently care about, but now they see the world and how we fit into it so completely different from you that it makes you wonder if a common ground can be found. And is the common good lost forever?
What is especially hard is that often these people come from the same place as you. They lived in the same town, went to the same schools and churches, knew many of the same people, and for a period of time you even all slept under the same roof. Yes, your family and they are now so completely different from the people who usually surround you.
These individuals don’t share your POV and the outage they feel at what is going on in this country is 180 degrees from the outrage you feel. They don’t see the same things happening the same way. While you question our lack of humanity, kindness, and willingness to help others in need, they see and explain these things so very different that it makes your head spin and question, “How were our foundations laid?”
Rather than refusing to associate or interacting like at a forced meal of short duration, AKA the traditional holiday dinner, I suggest a dialogue. I challenge us all to dig deep to expose ourselves and our beliefs. It can’t deteriorate into a Fox News or MSNBC name-calling, fact-spouting, shouting match because those are on every day of the week. But if we speak with kindness and offer personal insight, it will be the truth as you know and like with everything else…
