Note: I wrote the post several days ago. It is only today that I have had time to read it over in preparation for posting. I use the word “tsunami” in the second paragraph. I will leave it. It still seems to best describe my view of hate. Please remember that this was written two days before the horrific tragedy in Japan. I do not use the word in any disrespectful way.
For a long time now I have described myself as an idealist who has had to become a realist. I’m thinking I was totally clueless. And I’m still an idealist. And maybe even more so than before!
I have found that a side effect of grief is the intensification of distress for others. So you can well imagine how distressing I find this tsunami of hate that seems to have hit us. I simply can’t understand it. If you read my post “18 Months Ago” you’ll remember my description of little granddaughters all across the world in the kitchen cooking with Grandma. I referred to the book, “Same Kind Of Different As Me”. It was my attempt to see how much alike we are as opposed to how different we are.
I collect quotes. There are people who have such natural wisdom. And they have the ability to verbalize that wisdom in a modicum of words. I believe the mustard seed is the smallest of seeds. So I think of these quotes as “mustard seeds of wisdom”.
Anyway, years ago I learned of Will Rogers saying he had never met a man he didn’t like. That really intrigued me! How was that possible? I like pretty much everyone I meet, but really! Never to have met anyone he didn’t like? I wondered if I could get down the road several years, look back at that point in time and say the same thing? That I had not, in x years, met anyone I did not like? I wanted to try.
But how to do that? I decided that a good starting point would probably be to assume I was going to like those I might meet. Seemed logical.
Also, I thought about the fact that I had always had the opportunity (and been enriched) to be around people so different, in lots of ways: nationality, religion, ethnicity, native language, race, talents, educational level, etc. I wanted to express that concept of being inclusive. So I came up with my own little saying. My own little mental guideline. I decided that if I were to meet someone who was pink with purple polka dots all over AND green feathers coming out of his/her ears, someone far different from anyone I had yet met, it should not matter in the least. I should notice the polka dots and feathers only in the same casual way I would notice that great purse some woman on the elevator has. (Sorry guys! I couldn’t think of something you might relate to. So just go with this. You’re smart.) It should only matter, like always, what that person was as a human being. I liked that. That would work.
I can’t say that I have liked everyone I’ve met. I only wish I could. (There does seem to be a few people who work hard at being as abrasive as they can.) BUT, I do think this idea, this concept, inspired by someone else’s wisdom has served me well. I have tried to train myself to look for the things that matter. I have tried to see people as being just like me. A regular person who works, takes care of his/her family, has good qualities as well as faults, is talented in some unique way or has an interesting and unusual blend of talents. That person has good days and bad days. That person does dumb things and then asks, “What was I thinking?” That person has suffered some pain common to us all. Etc, etc.
I know I am naïve. And now I realize, as I said at the beginning, that I never ceased being an idealist. But, guess what? I don’t want to change. In this one area, I don’t. It allows me to enjoy most everyone I meet. (But I do try to learn something from anyone I don’t enjoy or like so much. That works well, too.) It allows me to live without fear of others. It helps keep me, for the most part, I think, from making sweeping, ridiculous and inappropriate generalizations. At the very least, it keeps me aware of the debilitating nature of those generalizations.
Let me end with another quote. It is going to seem political because it originated in a political atmosphere. But I assure you, for me, it is not. It is just a good tool for everyday life. FDR said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Come to think of it, that sounds like an antidote for hate to me!
