Starting Over (again)
Its been months since I’ve written here. I recently changed my email address to use my own domain name and realized that some folk may say, hmmm, veraholly.com, what is that? So I felt obliged to write something current before spreading the email address around to friends. But, one can not remain without a known email address indefinitely.
Webpages are processes. They are never finished. Sometimes the evolution is temporarily halted but inevitably, in my experience, it begins again.
I began my blog because I wanted to explore ideas. I was not interested in dwelling on the details of my actual life. It is ideas that move me.
Recently I have been talking with friends about my unwillingness to put myself ‘out there’ because the ideas that I support may differ from the image that I believe that people that know me personally may have of me. This is a result of a long-time habit of revealing my deepest thoughts only to the people that I believed would be receptive to them.
It seems that in the past month the anger that is publicly expressed has been ratcheted up. The health care debate has become the issue that has caused much resentment and frustration to boil over. When I look at the faces of people (particularly older people) on TV who are so angrily protesting something that may be in their best interest I feel a deep sorrow. It is very sad to me that we, as a society, can not act with compassion and find a way to give the people that need the help the most the help they need. I am definitely for health care for all people. I do not know how this can be accomplished but I know that when one person in a society is lacking the entire society is lacking.
Some of my friends feel the same way as these people on TV.
I keep thinking “why can’t we have a civil discussion?”
It almost feels irrelevant to me right now that I would feel so motivated to hide my beliefs from those around me. I don’t want to yell them or argue about them. I simply want to be respected. But, I am sensing that this may not always be possible.
I do not have the power to change another person. The only influence I can have is to put myself out there and if it resonates then perhaps there has been influence. More important than having influence, I think, is to facilitate discussion.
In order to have the civil discussion that I want I must respect those that I do not agree with. This is sometimes a very hard pill to swallow but it’s the only thing that will bring the change that I want.
No one has the right to force their ideas on others. The divisions among people seem to be becoming more pronounced. In the past this may have caused me to retreat further from everybody whose ideas I did not agree with. In a very strange way, as the discussion gets more heated I feel that this response is no longer appropriate. Collectively, we need to find a synthesis that is acceptable. That means all voices need to be heard.
