Tenderfoot Diaries

I’m a big believer in a community.  If nothing else, the Outdoor Bloggers Summit is ample evidence of that.   I believe that people who come together and work in harmony toward a common goal can do  great things.  I also believe that many people need to get their heads out of their asses and remember that simple fact.

In a time when there are a host of serious issues facing us on a number of fronts, many people seem more concerned with pointing out the differences that divide us rather than focusing on the similarities that bring us together.   In the clamor of all the name calling and back biting and drawing lines between “them” and “us” the real issues get obscured.  Suddenly the issue becomes whether you’re a “them” or an “us” rather than what skills or talents you can bring to the table to help solve the real issue at hand.  It feels sometimes like the entire world has become a giant game of “Red Rover, Red Rover” except no one ever gets to cross over and make a connection with the other side.

Connections are important to me, and it angers me when other people’s perceptions of who I am or what I believe, based on no real knowledge of who I am or what I believe, get in the way of making a connection.  Getting to know a real human being is a lot of work.  Over the centuries it has become apparent that we’re always willing to take the shortcut of slapping a person or a group of people with a label and thinking that label tells us who they are, what they want and what they believe.  It saves all the hard work of actually talking to someone and thinking about what they say.  Heck, if you slap on a label you don’t actually have to listen at all.

If we’re going by the label system, I’m a whiny Liberal, or perhaps more Moderate, but certainly not Conservative.  I’m a child of divorce, with an alcoholic biological father.  I’m a sexual abuse survivor.   I survived a year long depression in my early 20’s which nearly killed me, so I suppose I am, or was, mentally ill.  I’m a writer.  I like men rather than women, so I’m a heterosexual.  I support hunting, so in PETA’s eyes, I’m a murderer.  The list could go on and on and on.

The point I’m trying to make is that you might think all these labels tell you something about me, and that something will be positive or negative based on your own belief system, but in reality you really don’t know anything more about me than you did before.  Each of those labels is just a fragment of my story and the only way you’ll know how they all combined to shape my personality and my beliefs is to put aside your preconceptions and talk to me in an open and accepting frame of mind.

Of course, the same goes for me.  I try to be non-judgmental, but I’m sure there are times when I let someone’s professed beliefs or comments color how I think about them.  Everyone does it, and it’s doing a lot of harm.  What we focus on ideologies instead of ideas, we lose an opportunity to connect and work together to solve the issues that we face.  When what one person believes about another person’s beliefs stops them from having an honest and open conversation, and finding the similarities in their differences, then we all lose.

I’m sure there are some who will read this post and think I’m a granola eating Liberal hippie,  who is spouting peace and love and understanding 40 years after such things were fashionable,  but that’s not my problem.    I’m standing on one side of the divide and I’m reaching across.

I’m hoping to find some people out there who will reach back.