You Must Hear Them Better When They Yell

“If you fuel your journey on the opinions of others, you are going to run out of gas.” ― Steve Maraboli

How has it reached a point where everyone with a microphone these days seems to be telling us that they know better what is right for us then we do? I am talking about FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, comedy shows, dramas, radio disk jockeys, even the guy holding the sign at the intersection. We are treated as if we are just simple, stupid hicks. We are looked at by these con artists and spin doctors with their smug, satisfied smiles and provided their simple answers to our varied and many complex problems. Their statements seem so emotionally satisfying to that primitive part of our brain that we can’t help but think about jumping on the bandwagon, shouting amen, or buying a couple gallons of that snake oil they’re peddling. 

In the eighties it was “Tear down the wall” and now we are exhorted to “Put up a wall.”

So let’s dissect a couple things:
• Because someone knows more and bigger words, this does not make them smarter.
• Not believing the same things as what you believe doesn’t make them right and you wrong, right?
• Failing to agree with the majority does not make that minority opinion or viewpoint necessarily a terrible problem, or make them terribly wrong.

Basically, (in my humble, un-shouted opinion) we need to work on having a high level of respect for the many differences of opinion, more than what is happening around us these days. Having moral, policy, or ideological differences is not a failure by one side to “get it.” You don't have to save me from myself or my personal values. I am great with them and we are getting along splendidly.

I am waiting for the ridicule to stop, and empathy to begin to evolve in some people. I am waiting and hoping to hear people without all the shouting and name-calling. 

Basically I am waiting.

It may be a long wait for me and I hope that to have enough gas in my tank. 

The Unexpected Should be Expected

“Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.” -William Wordsworth

Betrayal can come in many forms. It can surprise you unexpectedly when it arrives or it may creep up on you over time and space. Getting older can seem like a betrayal of sorts, as our body and mind seem to decline in its abilities and functions. Our brains do not seem to be cognitively wired to foresee this coming as time marches on. Sometimes our brains do not see the sudden betrayals, the quickening of a dispute, or the rapid reversal of an opinion or a flat out lie that throws you under the bus.

Nature however, as Wordsworth so eloquently states, seems to gather up a consistent and perfect track record of non-betrayal. It moves along laws that can be deciphered and understood, especially when science is applied. You may argue that an earthquake or a volcanic eruption may be nature betraying man, but is it not more nature just being nature. How can we look at it as a betrayal in the sense that humans define betrayal?

When I ponder this, I have new found respect for the existence of the natural world and an understanding of my place in it. It is often easier to exist against a human-less backdrop of earth, trees and sky than in a group of homo-sapiens. Anything that may happen to me while i am in nature should be unexpected yet perfectly reasonable if it occurs. Swimming in the ocean? Get eaten by a Great White Shark. Living in San Francisco? That big earthquake is coming. Build your house in a flood plain? The rains will someday be a fallin’.

So I, as Wordsworth, will continue to love the fact that nature will not betray me. And I will try my best to be more like nature with those around me, so they will not experience the unexpected from me. And hope that they will be more nature-like in return.