Remember when we didn’t give a damn about politics? Me neither. But I do remember when we weren’t so mean. When in order for my point of view to be right, your opposite point of view was just misled and someday you would come around. Or for you to be right, you simply felt that I was misled. I miss those days. Now for you to be right means that I am racist, sexist, uneducated zombie that must be a closet Nazi and for me to be right means that you are a hateful over sensitive communist who wants to turn everyone on my side into part of the LGBT community. I just want to put your mind at ease. I am not a zombie. Chances are, you are not a communist either. So why all the name calling and what is it that makes us not family, friends and neighbors, but enemies that need to be ridiculed and belittled? I wish I held the answer because without this, there is no solution. I understand the politics of it all but I want to keep this on a personal level because that’s where we live, grow old and die. We impact each other with the way we interact, whether with kindness, generosity, anger or whatever, we affect the community we live in. Our circle of influence. When we leave that circle and venture into social media, everything becomes polarizing and it has taken me until now to grasp that.

On social media we always have an ally. We always have an adversary. No discussion or explaining. Posts are reduced to attacking and sidetracking, and all things are amplified and exaggerated to the point where everything is expressed in half-truths. It is odd to me that in the same breath that we boast of our open-mindedness, we also proclaim that social media never changes anyone’s mind. There was a time when people exchanged ideas and worked through differences of opinion in a civil manner but now the lone voice of reason is devoured by packs of the loud and aggressive, hell bent on shouting you down. An angry mob. God help us when we treat our animals better than our fellow humans.

So here are my closing thoughts on all this. Most everyone that I live around, worked with, and sat in pews with, had very similar hopes and dreams. No matter what their political views, they had families that they loved very much. At my age, I am attending funerals at an alarming rate and nobody ever asks who the deceased voted for or how they felt about immigration. On a personal level, beyond all the noise of twenty-four hour news, we all want the same things. To be healthy and happy. To be loved. So if we disagree on anything, I will patiently wait until all the facts become clearer to you. You do the same!