Tag: christianity

My Friends on the Left

I have friends on the left. Let me rephrase, I know people on the left whom I would still consider a friend, though I doubt the feeling is reciprocated. I don’t have many actual friends by the traditional definition, that’s just part of getting older I suppose. What I would consider a friend is someone who I would feel a desire to seek revenge for if someone had ever hurt them. By that standard, I have friends on the left.

I am not ultra-conservative, I am just simply a PROLC (Person Right of Left Center.) I feel that I should be entitled to my political opinions, hell, for nearly all of human history there have been nearly an equal amount of people created on both sides of that coin. Somehow we’ve made it to 2024 as one species and continue to grow. No amount of slander or hatred will prevent that statistic from holding true. But with that being said, I often feel bad for my friends on the left.

I feel bad, because when I say or post something that goes against their viewpoint, I feel guilty about it. Often I delete. I don’t want to risk alienating those individuals who I still consider a friend. I don’t feel my viewpoint is stupid or wrong, I feel that them seeing it would make them angry or upset and I don’t want to do that to my friends on the left. But speaking of feelings that aren’t reciprocated, this is most certainly one of them.

I have one particular friend who epitomizes the left in my eyes. When I think of left-wingers, I think of this girl. I still consider her to be a friend. She has no problem not providing me that same respect. She will often mock Jesus, Christians, Right-Wingers, or anyone who doesn’t see the world exactly like her. When I think of the people she is mocking, I think of my parents. She has no problem mocking my parents, but would block me, badmouth me, or disavow me if I did the same to her with the same level of persistence. If I was a politician, running on my viewpoints, she would not support me as a childhood friend but would actively engage is disparaging me. I would be a racist. I would be a bigot. I would be a “xenophobe.” I would be all the trendy catchphrases that my friends on the left have for those that with opposing views. As an individual, she knows I am none of these things. But how do my friends on the left equate that to all, even though they surely know those who are not?

Do my friends on the left truly not have any friends on the right? Do they truly think that life would be better without this balance of opposites? Do they not see that there is good, bad, good in the bad, and bad in the good? Are they so certain that they are the good in this world of black and white? I feel guilty hurting my friends on the left. Their feelings are very easily hurt. All one must do is simply disagree.

But my viewpoints are my viewpoints. I don’t know where they came from. I have family with different viewpoints, yet we are cut from the same cloth. I have friends from the same style upbringing, yet we see the world different. Surely it is more than just nature or nurture that forms our viewpoints. Why can’t my friends on the left afford me the same respect that I would give to them? Why are the ones who claim to be understanding and compassionate write off 50% of the global population, or lump them into the same pile?

Why are we all far-right? Is there no such thing as far-left? In my opinion there is, but we don’t ever see those words in print. We don’t see far-left in the news, we don’t see far-left on social media, we don’t see far-left on a boat. We don’t see far-left with a goat. The only people I know who are willing to hurt anyone, are my friends on the left. Respect is a one-way street.

I feel a desire to seek revenge on those that hurt my friends. I feel that desire even if that friend is on the left. The only time I actually do seek revenge, is when that person who hurts them is me. Perhaps this is what they want. They don’t want to change my mind, they don’t want my friendship. They only want my silence. I feel bad for my friends on the left.

Humans After All

How far we have come. From hunting to gathering. From living in caves to building skyscrapers. From not being able to even cook our food to being able to control the temperature in every environment we spend our lives in. Humans should be proud. Humans should feel accomplished. Humans deserve a little more credit.

We are the guardians of our galaxy. We have the ability to resurrect entire species from the brink of extinction and even those have been completely vanquished. Some (most) of the stuff our minds have created is still perplexing to me. How did we possibly figure this out? I can dial a number on a device and have real-time conversation with anyone in any corner of this planet. I can use that same device to speak to them face to face. Amazing!

I am of the opinion that we are all made up of three parts. I would hope the majority of us are made up two parts good, one part evil. The spectrum of those goods and evils may vary from person to person of course, and that’s what sets us apart. I hear stories about men and women who are so outlandishly good, that I can’t imagine how they were able to constrain their evil so well. I hear about people so evil, that I can’t imagine they have any capacity for love. But surely they do. Surely they love and are loved. Someone, something, somewhere shares their love.

I have difficulty understanding how we have evolved so far as a species, have reached such great heights, and done this all with the burden of life in this world weighing down on us. Life is difficult, life is tragic, life can really hurt, yet somehow we persevere. We march forward. We are all here today thanks to an uninterrupted chain of reproduction. Ancestors who have struggled. Ancestors who have faced the trials and tribulations of their time, but still provided the world with a copy of themselves to usher in the next years.

I have felt the pain of the generations before me coursing through my veins, I have felt their anxiety, I have felt their fear. It keeps me going and keeps me strong. Somewhere out there in the heavens, a person who I have never met or could even trace myself back to, is smiling and proud. They are delighted with what they’ve created and the thousands (if not millions) of others in this world who have been branched from the same trunk. I (we) owe it to them to continue marching on.

If all goes well, and I surely hope it does, I will inevitably be able to continue pouring out my thoughts and feelings. Some will come from my parts which are good, some will inevitably come from my part that is evil. My hope is that when these are read, that people understand that we are just one species. We are of the same cloth. We have differing opinions and thoughts of course, but who is to say where these thoughts even come from? What is the source of our ideas?

I feel like some come from my brain, I feel like some come from my heart, but what has placed those there? They just seem to magically appear. We are only humans, after all. Much like a deer, a rabbit, a bear, or a fox. We are made up of similar chemistry but somehow ours is the one that has reached these heights. We have also reached such lows. Organized wars? How is that even a thing anymore?

Like many people in today’s world, I fear that humans are working towards evolving themselves out of existence. My hope is that we take a step back and examine the righteousness of our paths, and work toward refocusing that path on the parts that are good. Evil is growing and only our collective can reduce it. Constrain it. We are humans. We have created life. We have built it to a point of reasonable comfort. There is absolutely nothing that we cannot do. How far we have come, how far we still have yet to go.