I have to remember sometimes that we all want something different. So why can't we all get along? Why can't we want the same things? I think we lost track of really getting to know what the people around us want. Sometimes getting to know the people that live around you can reveal personality you assumed didn't exist - stories and wisdom from the collective thousands of years of living life and making mistakes. Why is it so hard to learn from each other though, if we're standing right next to them and all we can think is, "why are they wearing their hat that way?," or, "They're from ____, that explains why they ____."
Communicating with people you don't understand or don't feel like understanding can reveal alot about who we think we are and what our biases about what goes on on the outside of our bodies. How can we assume that someone who looks a certain way is actually conscious of how they look to everyone else? I just threw on some old sweatpants and a holy t-shirt to do my laundry(it got bad) but I'm guessing I look like I ran out of clean clothes. I might not look like that to someone else, though, and I'm sure there are tons more strange combinations of events that resulted in some seriously out of context judgements over what people were wearing, the expression on their face, and the general appearance they cultivated physiologically. But what difference does it make if we stop judging them in our heads or in our conversations?
People do weird things, after all, and some behaviors are extremely entertaining for those who don't understand the context. I often wonder if jokes are just provoking the extreme and bizarre interpretation of a story we don't understand the complete context of. The biggest joke in the universe is “we’re alone with our experiences and with our thoughts,” though. We all share so many experiences, and some are so similar it gets weird when you find out someone you know went through your exact unique situation - just with different names and places. So when we go out to make moves in the world, and find people we don’t understand keep getting in our way, are we in the wrong town? Or do we need to check out where our judgements are taking us? Do we know the context of their lives? Am I an expert at that persons experiences?
We all feel it a little when some random person just walks in and judges us, and for a lot of people, almost every interaction with others is filled with judgements and projections. It comes from others and from our own shame but it doesn’t mean we need to isolate ourselves from certain interactions because we just don’t know their context and their behavior bothers us. Sometimes the biggest thing you can do to get beyond conflict with others is to take steps to get to understand whatever it is about them that bothers you. Ask questions with the intent of understanding how that specific person relates to their culture and behaviors. While learning some of the customs and language of people you are pretty much stuck with sounds like a bit much, you’d be surprised how much it can improve your everyday experience.
I need to be reminded that there are other stories out there that sound like ours, and that we all have the capacity to share experience with others instead of disqualifying them because you decided you just won’t ever understand them and that’s just weird I don’t like that, who talks like that, why is he here? You can’t do that, you can’t seriously believe that, oh don’t tell me you’re one of those people that thinks that, you know the rest.
