So I'm not sleeping... James and I slept til 3:00 Sunday afternoon anyway, so.... no wonder. :-)
I write differently when I know other people are going to read my diary entries. If this were a true private diary, I'd probably be a lot less diplomatic and even more self-centered. (Is it possible to have a diary that isn't self-centered?) Not that I'm egotistical. There's a difference between being egotisical and ego-centric, isn't there? I just spend far too much time thinking about myself. How to improve myself or whether or not I'm full of shit, and did I just sound like an asshole, etcetc. That sort of thing. I am trying to be more Zen. Really!
Anyway. So my issue today. TOLERANCE. Took me a while to get to that. I was reading an article last night, and the author was pointing out that the idea of "tolerating" people with other backgrounds is sort of like tolerating a bad cold. Why are our goals so low? In the liberal community (which I am a part of) we say "tolerate difference" as if that's some great thing. As the writer pointed out, the law already requires (for instance) fundamentalists to tolerate gay people. *Not* tolerating would involve some sort of violence, wouldn't it? So, what... it's okay to *want* to kill someone as long as you don't actually harm them? Is *THAT* what we're aiming for?
Why aren't we aiming for, oh I don't know, "respect" or "understand" instead of tolerance? If I ask someone to "tolerate" my opinions, doesn't it mean "Please just bear with me, this will be over soon, don't beat me up, okay?" It's not even hoping for some sort of exchange of ideas. Sad.
Then again, I guess when I say I don't tolerate something, it usually involves me mouthing off at someone and getting really cranky. I joked today with Rob and said I can't tolerate intolerance. Perhaps I shouldn't be tolerating tolerance, either... ya know? What if we actually aimed for something really crazy like.. oh, I dunno... world peace or love or something actually noble?
Gosh, I'm such a revolutionary.
One of these days I'll stop arguing with young enlisted boys. Really.
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