I'm done, too.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

246. I try to take people more seriously these days.

In my early blogging days over on Daily Kos, I was a lot more sarcastic, more impressed with my own 'wit'. It actually took going through some of my psych-related nursing classes for me to realize how less than helpful those sorts of postings were. No matter how far apart you are with someone on an issue, your individual stances don't simply come out of a vacuum. They come out of pain, out of fear, out of anger, out of hope, out of love (whether of self or others), all informed by the very different lives we've all lived. Just like everyone else, I get frustrated when people don't 'see' what I think they 'should', but I try not to simply go at them head on. Find places you agree with others, establish respect that you each can reason, and then push your argument with at least that modicum of respect, trying to find the shift in thought that is the key to allowing them to see things as you do. I don't want people to simply adopt what I think is 'right', I want them to be able to see what I do, and to decide to make that change because they can now see more.

And I realize that it IS a neverending fight, even within oneself. There are parts of me that are still blind to various struggles of women, of people of colour, of homosexuals, of transgendered. And denial is a reflex. But I like to think that I remember AFTER the initial denial, to try and examine the issue in question from more angles, to see it from more eyes. Sometimes I get there quicker, sometimes slower, and once in a while, I decide whatever it is has more influences than just racism, just sexism, etc, and that while they might feed in in part, they may not actually be the prime motivator.

I think what's important is that we actually do end up with change for the better for those who come after us, not that we 'win points' individually in blog fights.