Time to pack it in?

Sometimes I'm sure we all feel like there's just no use in fighting anymore. Things aren't getting better. What is any one of us, individually, supposed to do? After all, each of us is just one person. That's right. But, so what?

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but we humans are different from our animal cousins in a very important way: we can talk. We can communicate both concretely and abstractly. We can question and we can explore. Our language abilities give us a tremendous leg up in the evolution game, to say the least. But it is this special skill that we use to little.

There are a couple of preconditions to making talking effective, however. (For a lot of us, this is the hard part.) First of all, not everyone thinks like we do. Not everyone sees the world like we do. Not everyone believes the things that we do. And that's OK. In fact, it's an advantage, collectively, if we allow it to be. Second, everyone is entitled to their opinions, but not all opinions are created equally. Opinions should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it, so just having one means nothing. We have to learn to provide support for the opinions that we have. Third, we have to be open to difference. This means not only allowing for other opinions, but also for other ideas and approaches. Sometimes it's not one thing but a combination of a variety of things that provides the best solution to a problem. Fourth, we have to be patient. We need to allow others to express themselves just as we want to be allowed to express ourselves. But, fifth, related to this, we have to learn to listen. I don't mean we have to find out what's wrong with what someone else is saying but strive to understand what s/he really is saying. Language is by its very nature ambiguous. We can think we've said something clearly but it may still be ununderstandable to someone else.

In other words, we need to relearn how to talk with one another, not just talk to, and especially not talk at ... no we need to practice talking with one another again.

Some of us are able to do this within our families, though Lord knows there are enough families in which this doesn't happen anymore. Some of us can do this with our close friends, but have trouble doing it with strangers, and this brings us to a sixth precondition, namely, all talk is personal. Every time we open our mouths (or write something like this blog) we are sharing part of ourselves with others. This takes a certain amount of courage. We can't be afraid to share.

The seventh, and final, precondition to be met is we need to be on the look out for what's common, not what separates. These days we focus too often what makes us different, not what makes us alike. For as different as we are, we humans have an awful lot in common. It is the commonalities that we find strength. In the differences we can find new ways to make the strengths stronger.

Why do I think this is an answer ... something as simple as learning to talk with one another again? I believe I'm on the right track for the simple reason that it is very easy to say, but we all know, it is extremely difficult to put into practice. That's a dead giveaway.