The feels. We don't say that anymore -- that was so 2019. But words aside, the idea is universal. There are times when they hit us. It makes it almost impossible to be thinking bad conspiracy thoughts about people. For me, it stops the judgments and puts me in the situation of whatever I'm exposed to.
With the feels, it's about a connection of some sort to someone else's experience, and I join them there. It's the compulsion of empathy. Yeah, I could resist and steel myself against it, but why? Why? I'm so used to my own feeling main-drag most of the time -- why NOT take a few minutes to let myself see a different view of life from another's...eyes? Hypothalamus? Amygdala?
I'm convinced that if we could sit on a big sectional with a decent sound system, have someone from the other side of opinions play their favorite high school play-list, and talk over the thoughts and feelings that they bring up, that this ridiculous othering and demonizing of the "enemy" would disappear with a few sessions.
This isolationist, echo-chamber, anti-speech immersion common today is the opposite. It lets the thought leaders (influenceers/ pundits/ talking heads/ pecuniary exploiters) corrupt the truth by sticking to their one-sided righteousness broadcast, which, of COURSE, is so much more common-sensical then the other side. When you don't have to feel anything but your own (baser) sentiments amplified and stimulated and emitted, and then radiated out with laser focus against whoever is not [us], of course that's going to excite that default "I'm good, aren't I?" desire.
When you get a chance to FEEL the sentiment of someone foreign to your sensibilities, it's weird at first. Because there's a this disturbing sense that they have a point, like there's a legitimacy to their perspective, based on their life experience. And sometimes even their deep study of facts. But you've spent the better part of [a decade? lifetime? few years?] simply trying to contradict their thoughts. Yuck. That's just stupid when you realize that, at the core, the intentions are the same: Everyone should get a fair chance to live their lives as they like, free to be who they are and act as they believe is the best for themselves and their family. Yes, it's not that simple in the details, but fuck the motherfuckers who don't acknowledge that we all want the best for ourselves and the long-term prosperity of our country for everyone between our shores. Start with that. And stop disparaging the others' motives (unless they're bigoted), if you must have your "others." (I get it, it's easy to forget I am you. Easiest thing in the world. And, of course, utterly true.)
