Friends and Followers
Whether you are losing friends or followers in real life or on facebook those people were probably not meant for you in the first place. Now more than ever people are seemingly becoming more and more divided and issues seem to be more and more polarized. This is normal during an election year but is it really normal and what is driving people to become this divided? I consider myself very lucky to have grown up at the very beginning of the technological revolution in schools. I also remember being taught that freedom of speech and expression and healthy dialogue are paramount for a healthy democracy and society. I can not remember a time in school whether it be high school or college that I felt uncomfortable sharing my opinion or speaking up on any matter even if I knew someone was going to disagree with me because the disagreement was always respectful.
What I am noticing now whether it be with me personally, or what I am seeing on social media platforms and in everyday life, is that people are less likely to have respectful conversations where disagreements are bound to happen. What this has done has not eliminated these “hot button issues” rather it has further polarized individuals and society and exacerbated the problems that already existed after temporarily pushing these issues under the rug only for them to come back stronger and more extreme on all ends of the spectrum. Think back to the throat chakra post, without communication and expression there is nowhere for this energy to go. What we have done as a society is not discuss these issues with our fellow citizens, rather we find echo chambers of people who only think like us and demonize people who may have different opinions.
Obviously there is a difference between hate speech and discourse and there is no place for evil speech in any space, but what has happened is that we make assumptions about people based on their political affiliations, who they associate with personally, what they look like, our own personal biases and a number of other factors. We do not listen to understand, we listen to respond or we don’t even listen at all because we are so complacent with where we are at, that we don’t want a single idea or conflicting concept to permeate our carefully put together reality. Human egos are fragile and some people do not have the capacity for an identity crisis which is why we hold onto our egos so tightly. Love and understanding are obviously the end goal here but in my experience over the last four years, not everyone is at a place or has the capacity to meet you where you are at. It is important to be able to discern those people who you can have an intelligent conversation with and be respectful with each other even if there is an agreement to agree to disagree at the end. There are other people who are unwilling to hear any opinions or ideas other than their own and those people are probably not worth your time and energy.
At the end of the day we are all on this earth together and we are each given various gifts from god all of which are important for the progression of humanity and in order for humanity to progress all ideas and views need to be heard. Oppression or suppression is not the way forward, but there needs to be a personal accountability that must be taken by each and every individual on the path forward. Change is hard but change is necessary and change can only happen when ALL voices are heard, not just the ones that are convenient and easy to hear. The issues facing the world today are heavy and complicated and they will not be solved by people staying quiet because they are afraid of getting attacked by someone with a differnet view. . My advice is to speak up wherever you can about WHATEVER you are passionate about and if there are those out there who want to silence you they can go fuck themselves.
