It helps me to walk through these tenets in my mind:

1. Stand up to your enemies when their ideas are wrong.

2. Acknowledge your enemies when their ideas are right.

3. Recognize that people with different ideas aren’t your enemies, they’re just people with different ideas.

Snowy communicates what she wants and feels with looks, licks, wags, breathing, beckoning, barking, and other forms of non-speech. At times it can feel like a game of charades. It gets me thinking about the enormous advantage of SPEECH which evolved among humans.

Then I consider SHAME, which has evolved along with that speech. It represses not only communication, but also, often, the wants and feelings inside our own minds. I find myself wondering, on the whole, if we are truly better than speechless yet shameless animals at communicating what we want and feel?

Interestingly, both are societal evolutions. Neither speech nor shame are built into our genes. They are taught and learned.

Tonight is the first presidential debate of 2020. I must say that I’m highly disappointed with both candidates. I’m extremely disappointed with both political parties. I test out “Solid Liberal” every time I revisit the “Pew Political Typology Quiz” and I’m voting Biden. However, I think he is one of the worst representatives of my views, just as, I would hope, Trump is one of the worst representatives of the views of those who support him.

We do a poor job of understanding the other side–the evil OTHERS. We see only what is right with “us” and wrong with “them.” We fight. We divide. This human failing has bothered me enough throughout my life that in Spring of 2017 I had the words “BOTH/both” tattooed to my arms as a frequent reminder not to fall for the traps of false dichotomies, tribalism, polarization, black-and-white thinking, etc. It has helped remind me that two views can be both opposing and true at the same time, that the weaker side can have the more powerful argument, that multiple perspectives are always more useful, and that in conflicts we are most often wanting and saying the very same things.

If you think the “others” are evil, please consider that you may have been duped, and are now feeding back into the very worst problems of our current society. Please consider taking this poll, and rather than focusing on YOUR perspective, think about the one you would NOT select. Can you at least understand why some might see things that way? Now look back at your choice. Can you see any issues or shortcomings with it?

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/quiz/political-party-quiz/

Perhaps we should reserve “I’m not good at” and “I don’t enjoy” for things we attempt often? Everything else is “I don’t do much.”

We all hold some bad beliefs. When re-assessing, why not start with those you didn’t pick yourself?

When looking for a romantic partner, assuming both parties are available, I recommend focusing on only two qualifiers to determine whether or not this relationship should continue:

1. You want this person
2. This person wants you

In both cases, be sure to distinguish wanting the person from wanting something from the person.

“Freedom.”

Are you sure that’s the word you were looking for to describe why you love America? Because you can do whatever you want? Because you can have whatever you want?

“Freedom.”

But can’t you do and have even MORE of whatever you want in A LOT of other places? There are likely less restrictions on any one thing somewhere else. You can find more freedom elsewhere. More guns. More capturing or killing of animals. More wives. More drunk driving. More bigotry. More rape, violence, rioting, looting, murdering, destruction, robbing, killing.

“Freedom.”

Freedom is everywhere. There is an abundance of freedom in the world. And one person’s freedom to do as they wish is another’s subjection to it. Freedom to do harm.
Here’s why I love America: Protection. In situations where your freedom means another person’s harm, this country, generally speaking, will RESTRICT your freedom.

“Protection.”

Isn’t that actually what makes America great?

• One note: I’m a big advocate of the freedom of speech, like every other freedom, if it doesn’t harm others. That said, I don’t think that what many people would call “harm” from speech is actual HARM, but rather FEELINGS like discomfort, anger, shame, embarrassment, etc. For example, if you tell a lie about someone which results in them wrongfully being imprisoned, that’s harmful speech, and there should be penalties associated with doing so–restrictions on your freedom. However, if you tell me you disagree with my soapbox posts on Facebook because I’m naive and ill-informed, I will feel uncomfortable feelings, but a government (and IMO social media platform) should NOT restrict that freedom.

I don’t buy into the ideas of time travel or divergent timelines, but with this last election, I have often wondered if we aren’t that timeline which some ragtag group of heroes must go back in time to prevent from happening?

Furthermore, in that divergent timeline, if they were to make a sci-fi movie about this one, I wonder if the other version of me would scoff at the absurdity?

In mathematics, if you change the variables of a problem, you must also change the formula used to solve it. Yet in life, with its infinite variables, we often apply banal snippets of wisdom universally, most commonly in the form of unsolicited advice.

The unexplainable is never evidence of the explainable.