The sun can burn, but it also opens flowers…

The sun may scorch, but a plant cannot flower if it blocks the sun’s rays for fear of a burn.  -me

In a Twitter chat today, someone was discussing with me about how our lives are built upon our experiences but also input from other people – family, friends, people we look up to and tend to give some kind of extra status to for whatever reason. I had the above sudden analogy spring into mind because someone else I was talking to this morning, someone I *still* look up to and will not bash, ever, blocked me when our political debate went towards Iran. So I was shut out from further talk/debate when this person said that a totalitarian state like Iran has to have their “bogeyman” (this was in regards to Ron Paul’s statement about Iran in the debates last night). I laughed when I read it because to me, that is the way it is here as well. So I mentioned that… in fact I said:

LOL you took the words out of my mouth – how exactly is America different there? They always have a bogeyman as well.

Okay, so I  might have crossed a line there with this person. My approach was wrong. My ability to debate has come a very long way but there is always room for improvement, I just really wished it didn’t go this way with this particular person. He has a very different viewpoint than I do and words like this, usually won’t keep a debate going for long. I want to learn from him and, hopefully, vice versa. I won’t go into why I said that, as this isn’t about why I believe what I do, just about talking and remaining open. I realize now that by saying that, I wasn’t truly being as open as I wanted this person to be with me and for that, the responsibility lies solely with me.

Again, I won’t go into how I came to the position I have now in regard to politics, that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is to suggest that we should encourage real talk and real debate or we aren’t going to encourage knowledge to grow. I try to not shut out others because I want their point of view on things. Being human, we should always want to be in a state of discovery and learning; so what happens when you turn off that ability or start to put filters on it? We don’t always like hearing other points of view because they will always differ – even people that you are perfectly getting along with at some point you will clash with them because we are different people. And having a smart ass remark or blocking will not encourage real talk. We have free will and the ability to see things in different ways, put different and new and changing perspectives on what we see through our own field of view and we should be open to new information from different people.

And this applies to EVERYONE! There is another situation where some idiot troll decided to make a lame attempt at insulting someone’s wife and kids because they just wanted to be mean I guess. That’s absurd and it really muddies the waters for those of us that WANT to talk. Other people won’t listen to me if trolls are out there trying to make it sound like they are of the same political/philosophical path as me. I assure you that is NOT the case! I adhere to the non-aggression principle (no, it isn’t pacifism) and know that ridiculous insults like that serve no one but the troll – when it comes to trolls, my motto is don’t feed them. Ignore them, don’t respond. Like a bully in elementary school, they will go away when they know they can’t get a rise out of you.

So, in conclusion if I’m engaged in talk or debate, I will really try to remain open and carefully think each response, leaving jokes or banter (or what, for me, passes as banter and jokes) aside.

And if by some strange, but beautiful twist, the person I mentioned above that I *still* look up to is reading this, please consider opening up that line of communication again. I know there is more of a chance of a snowball surviving hell than my hope that this person is reading this right now but, I thought I’d put it out there anyway…

Thanks for reading <3