Starting from the very early stages of your life, you take in the information around you. You learn to decipher spoken language, pick up on the cadence of speech of those in your little world, and eventually start to form your own opinions,or so you think. Although many young people may feel separated from their parents, a good number of children are simply sponges that absorb whatever is around them. It is only when they encounter opposing ideas or opinions that they are forced to think about their own.
Growing up in a culturally Jewish household, minus the belief in a deity, the concept of there being a God never crossed my mind. Somehow, there was someone that wasn’t dead or alive? Someone that managed to hover above the clouds but couldn’t be spotted when I was traveling in an airplane? Someone who dictated many aspects of my life but couldn’t be seen or heard? These abstract ideas had never occurred to me. That was, at least, until I began my first few years of school.
I have a distinct memory of walking in the cold weather with snow atop every visible surface. Holding an icicle in my hand while licking it, I was listening to other kids pronounce the word popsicle differently than I did. One of my classmates began pointing at the sky and talking about a beam of light that was just barely peeking through. “Look, that’s Heaven!” That was my first introduction to a deity.
As a self identifying skeptic, I’m sure that upon hearing these words, I passed judgement. I was used to what I’d heard before, and this idea of a god was certainly out of the ordinary.
I doubt this concept of wholeheartedly believing and resonating with the beliefs of our parent(s) is specific to me. My reasoning is simple. We’re often only given one option. That is, only until we’re exposed to the beliefs and opinions of others.
That brings me to today, this moment with you, right now, as the thin sheets of papers are sandwiched between your fingers. Are you, and maybe even I, still willing to listen to the possibly abstract beliefs and opinions of those around us? Are our minds truly willing to bend enough to consider ideas that are seemingly so foreign? In my opinion, the answer is no. I believe this to be the source of many of our current problems.
Many people like to believe that they’re right and that they understand what’s happening in the world, and if they don’t, they tell themselves that such knowledge isn’t necessary. “I don’t concern myself with politics,” I’ve heard many say. This, in my mind at least, is the result of people trying to avoid discomfort.
Since COVID, with the invention of Doordash, Zoom, and countless other companies that maximize efficiency, the world has been consumed with prioritizing convenience. Most operations today are more efficient, but they allow people to draw a line between themselves and their uncharted surroundings.
This is what has allowed for the mass avoidance of discomfort. People are no longer forced to make the decision between sitting in awkward silence or making conversation with a stranger. They are no longer driven towards each other in attempts of escaping boredom. Rather, they can live within their comfortable bubbles and isolate themselves from the diverse perspectives that surround them. We have built up, as a society, an intolerance for discomfort.
This intolerance isn’t just inhibiting some of the most natural human experiences like having a conversation, but it has gotten to the point where it is getting in the way of our education and our ability to develop into responsible citizens.
Being able to hold respectful conversations on topics that we feel passionately about is crucial to the well being of society. If we don’t collectively have the capacity to do this, as individuals, we will never hear the perspective of others. Having the critical faculty of holding another’s opinion and considering it is the basis of collaboration. This skill is what we lack today, and it shows.
The vast divide between political parties is a result of this absence of alliances between those that aren’t like-minded. There are wars, murders, and entire armies that have been erected with the purpose of allowing people to keep practicing their rigid opinions.
These absurdities, of ICE, of our current decorated felon of a president Donald Trump, of crystal clear demonstrations of global democracy dissolving, will not end until common ground is reached and people learn to collectively join to fight for the existence of basic human rights in this country.
