Happy Festivus!
This was going to just be a silly-pre-Christmas post. But someone told me I was a hateful person the other day. I have grievances to air this Festivus. (I have never been called a hateful person before. It hits you in the gut, it makes you shake.)
But, it’s Christmas. #piff! Gone.
The end thought is this –what we need to do is just try to get along. Because we are all on the same planet, all spinning in the same direction, all subject to the same natural laws: of gravity, the need to breath, to eat, to sleep; all desirous of health, happiness, success, love. And there are billions of other people out there, right now, good and happy people, honorable, caring, and loving people, who don’t believe in the same things you do. This doesn’t make them wrong and doesn’t make you right. This doesn’t make you better than them, it makes you different than them.
There is a difference between verbal gymnastics, between disagreement, debate, forensics– and hate. Disagreeing, civil discourse, it’s all good. People have different ideas; getting into philosophical conversations about your favorite novel, God, poetry, politics, a particular shade of chartreuse, fine business: you believe X, I believe Y. When you move to personal attack—that is the cowards way, and says much about the speaker.
I respect your right to your own opinion, and even your desire to share it, if offered in a non-threatening manner, if you aren’t attempting to bully. Please offer me the same consideration.
And, HAPPY EVERYTHING!