I haven't posted a pure rant here in... ages. Some little off the cuff thing. Those have increasingly gone on Tumblr. This started there but I thought, why not, see what the wider world thinks too...
You know, people talk about how always “having discussions with people who agree with you” is some kind of bad thing. And they don’t usually even apply it to like, “people who agree with you on EVERYTHING” (ARE there any of those??) but just seem to mean “people with similar political/social philosophies”.
Increasingly, I’m like, fuck that.
It’s so fucking FRUSTRATING having conversations with people who aren’t at least on a similar wavelength. It’s the SAME FUCKING CONVERSATION OVER AND OVER!
Explaining the same basic shit over and over and arguing about it!
Explaining that racism is a systemic thing. Explaining that gender isn't just what your doctor assigned to you. Explaining that violence is something beyond just violent crime statistics. On and on....
It’s me, well in this case me, fucking giving that person an education they don’t fucking appreciate and me never getting anything out of it but honing my rhetoric.*
Deepest, best, most challenging conversations I’ve EVER HAD were with people with SIMILAR foundations/starting points discussing the nuances and challenges and YES DISAGREEMENTS we had about topics.
FACT.
And you know, I could use more of THAT and less of this frustrating bullshit.
*With the exception of people with whom I am mutually invested through friendship. Because that also invests us in trying to understand where the other is coming from, something the conversations I'm talking about generally totally lack. And that investment is, I think, similar to what you have between people who are working towards/from a similar place as you.
