Health & Fitness
Everything Looks Better in Black and White
The Us and Them paradigm has become the norm.
Is anyone else wondering why it seems lately that the world is boiling down to dichotomies, black and white, my way or the highway?
It seems to me that as long as we human beings continue to see through the filter of Us and Them it becomes all the more important to pick sides and then fight for whatever that side is supposed to stand for. Or else what? What might happen if the E word got employed just a bit more?
Empathy. Seeing things from another’s perspective. Caring about the affect on others. Examining nuances. Being willing to bend a bit to be more inclusive. Not thinking of compromise as weakness, but as a way of building a bridge. I believe if you live long enough you get to reexamine all the truths by which you might once have defined yourself. “Don’t trust anyone over 30” seemed reasonable once – until everyone was over 30 and it seemed ridiculous. In the current atmosphere of political vilification our leaders are demonstrating schoolyard behavior one would hope they could have outgrown by now. Even as they hopefully come to some kind of 11th hour conclusion to keep us afloat they angrily point out the evils of the Others. The truth is, if you can think of Others as truly different than yourself you can do anything to them. That truth has surfaced time and time again in history. We need to come together, not just in times of tragedy, but as human beings who share this planet, and care more for each other. What if there is no US, no THEM, no black, no white? Then what?
