I saw Sara off to Charlotte this morning and she played, Leaving on a Jet Plane, (Peter, Paul, and Mary - to hell with John Denver...) as she usually does when one of us is travelling. For some reason I got the urge to hear, If I Had a Hammer, (also Peter, Paul, and Mary but I do love the Weavers...) and asked her to play it. In a decidedly non-punk rock moment I felt myself overcome with emotion and couldnt talk much more for the rest of our ride to the airport. Ive been introspective / meditative the rest of this morning while Ive been working and felt the need to share this beautifully simple song and message with some of my thoughts. We live in bizarre times. People shoot each other over satire, racism and discrimination dominate the 24 hour news cycles, political rhetoric has reached completely insane levels, entire groups of people who have more in common than not have stopped speaking to each other because of trivial differences that shouldnt separate us the way that they do. Our world is gripped and gridlocked over where we have been and the hard steps we need to take to move forward together. I am not perfect, and I know all too well that I am a strong willed person who has alienated and angered plenty of friends and family over the year with those same strong beliefs. At the end of the day, we are all human and we all want something better. It becomes all to easy to forget this when we cast our detractors and opponents as villains instead of humans with other ideas and belief systems. Empathy, compassion, and love are the next steps we all must take to move forward towards a better world together. That comes in different forms for everyone and it is hard when people say or do things that go at odds with all that you believe and hold true. The best advice I can give, from someone who has had to learn tolerance and patience the hard way, is to stop and really put yourself in another persons shoes - to be truly empathetic - find some common ground and have a conversation. Check your assumptions and assume the best instead of the worst in the other person. When you operate from a place where a person with a differing opinion has the best intentions and isnt an opponent, a beautiful thing happens; you can listen to each other and try to understand that persons point of view. This is where all real and meaningful progress comes from - talking to someone else and trying to truly understand their point of view. Diverse ideas should be embraced, because out of truly diverse ideas you find solutions you would never have reached if you surround yourself with notions that never challenge what you believe.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 18:57:33 +0000
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