Ah, but here's the tricky question: What if it's all correct?
Shifting context so that all maps, including the tolerance of
the intolerant, is possible, I believe. Some says "if you stand
for nothing you'll fall for anything" and that's true but it's
also false. The multitude of overlapping perspectives and the
vastness of differing contexts allows all things to be true and
also not true simultaneously, depending on how one looks at the
diamond.
A fruitful endeavor, after many years of saying, "such and so is
'just a label'", was asking myself, WHAT IF.
WHAT IF all the stereotypes were true? What then? What would *I*
have to do to both accept their reality as it exists in the
minds of the believers *as real for them* _while -also-_
maintaining my own beliefs without getting lost in the process?
I believe it's possible. I believe it is also impossible. Yet
I'm still trying tongue emoticon The only thing that seems to be
effective is Love and friendship.
If I approach each person I see, especially those who consider
themselves adversarial to me, with love, and work on mapping my
understandings of them to myself until I can walk in their
moccasins as it were, and love them for who they are without a
condition of change required... while _ALSO_ standing where I am
and expressing my own perspective without expectation of their
change in a cheerful way... simply enjoying the exchange for
what it is.. I dunno - it just... seems to be workable for me.
I haven't found anything else as powerful as love and desire for
friendship and understanding. It seems to cross over all lines.
