To Every Person Feeling

Regardless of What You Are Feeling

I am conducting an experiment. I am trying to love people as they are. It is hard. People are flawed and stubborn and hostile and dangerous. People are traumatized from wars and abuse and oppression and terror and disease and senseless and violent deaths. Of course we are all angry. None of us are getting what we want. Not a single one of us. Who do we have to blame for that? It isn’t the person we want to blame. That might trigger people, but that’s ok. The blame is on us. Not “us” in any sort of collective group we’ve attempted to claim allegiance, but us. Humans. The people on this planet who are all allowing the world to happen to us rather than making the world happen.

I know that when we look for the things we have in common, our differences start to melt away, almost as if they never existed at all. They never really disappear, we are different — all of us, each one different from the other. Focusing on that would surely make us feel scared and vulnerable—quite literally all alone, the only one of our kind, in a world of over 7.4 billion people. Therefore, we try to group ourselves into some type of structure which doesn’t really exist; bind ourselves together somehow, so we don’t feel alone. We do this in ways which offer us the easiest methods to identify those who are like us and those who are not.

We do it by our skin. We match our shades and declare that these are our people. Surely we must belong together and not with those other people because, look at us! We match. We do it by our religious and political beliefs. You sound like me, therefore, you must be like me. We do this sorting and grouping by our incomes, our geography, our ages, our genders, our sexual preferences, our sports teams and favorite TV shows. In our attempt to assure ourselves that we are understood and like others, we are perpetually walling ourselves off into tiny, isolated groups. That desire to feel like we belong leaves us feeling more alone and out of place and we search for more ways to divide and separate and sort.

We never do it by how we feel. If we did, we would discover that we really are not that different from one another. No matter what faith we follow, or who we hold at night, we feel the same things. There are no differences when it comes to those inner emotions we attempt to hide in varying degrees depending on who we are around and how much we are willing to show. The best of us and the worst of us, however you define that, all feel the same things. We all want the same things. Things which are not material.

We want to be able to express ourselves and pursue a life which will light us up and make us feel important and valued. We want to be seen, as we are, and to not be required to change in order to be treated fairly and equally. We want to love and to be loved, freely, without persecution of who we choose to be with or how we choose to exist with that person. We want to be safe, while we are living, because we all know that death is a certainty which none of us can avoid— so let our death be a natural one from old age or an illness we have yet to cure. Don’t let our death be violent or senseless or preventable. We want life to feel safe, not scary. We want to know that we can make our mark on this world in our own unique way and look back on our life at the end of it all and not have regrets or resentments.

I think about this often. I challenge myself to look at articles written by people I just don’t like. I find Twitter profiles of people I struggle to comprehend— their shouts of what they want so strange and different from mine, but equally as passionate. I try to connect to that person and what they want. I want to be able to love another man and be happy with that person. You want to remain a virgin until you get married and have a traditional marriage. Both of those things are perfectly acceptable, as long as we allow each other to have them and we don’t hold one option hostage. If I love you as you are, you love me as I am. I want to be free to write and perhaps lead a more simple life, without the pressures of competing and climbing ladders and getting new titles and promotions. You want to head to into the world and have your own company and make lots of money. We can both do that, as long as the basic needs required to ensure that my life feels safe aren’t based on whether I can make as much money as you. Your ability, therefore, to have a huge home and a lavish lifestyle with helicopters and yachts shouldn’t depend on ensuring my writing is accepted by the world or seen by millions of people.

We can actually create this world, but it won’t be easy. We have gotten very off course along the way. We’ve done damage, to ourselves, to each other, to the world. We’ve spent so much time trying to categorize ourselves, we no longer really know who we are. We react to the world rather than exist in it. We distrust each other deeply. Still, I’m ready to work. I’ll put in my full heart if it means there is a future where humans get to be the absolute best versions of themselves. I will learn to accept the differences and focus on loving the things we have in common. I will champion you and cheer you on as long as you do the same for me.

When I look at other people through this filter, I soften. I no longer see the college student who is hyper conservative as being any less radical or frightening than my hyper liberal demands likely seemed when I was her age. Perhaps, the reason we keep generating extremes is because we refuse to compromise in the middle. Or, it is possible that it really does take that mix of differing view points in order to balance humanity and force us to learn tolerance and compassion. Maybe, just maybe, the reason we currently feel that can never give even an inch is because none of us are ever fully being who we want to be. Sacrificing, even when it is only a little, feels like too much.

I know that even if we get close to this reality, we will still have serious issues we will need to confront. We will still have situations in which people need a little extra help, or people decide they want to be exempted from the rules. There will be challenges in figuring out how to manage to allow some people to pursue what they want without causing harm to other people. I acknowledge that. But I also challenge you to think about how humanity, working together at the absolute best of our abilities, might deal with those things. What ingenuity and innovation might we bring into the world and our lives and our philosophies? If we are truly at our peak, would those issues and challenges derail us or motivate us? We can’t know for sure until we are actually there, but I’m willing to give it a shot. It has to be better than where we are today.