OPINIONS, OPINIONS

We are all filled with opinions, as plentiful as soot, which are often the byproduct, or garbage, of our obsessions, the result of long-held habits like watching cop shows, and what we have gleaned from that, consciously and unconsciously.

What do opinions matter? Not at all, except when we recognize how people kill for them. Wage war for them. Sacrifice their own lives for a belief.

A belief. An opinion. Mind bubbles.

What if, in chatting with a fellow activist, for example, I discover that she supports Israel, is sympathetic to its cause. While I am deeply opposed to the genocide in Palestine, my companion sees it as a necessary exclamation of history and nature, mere necessity.

Do we argue until our faces redden and one or both of us walks away, or do we set aside the dagger of our differences, doubling down instead on the more important imperative--treating the other as a human being regardless, inquiring about them as if their lives matter, listening sincerely, offering no judgment, just being with them in humanity, our abiding commonality.

Our opinions do not matter, they do not--Not in the face of endless war and killing and disappearances. Not in the face of what we are confronted with now here in the U.S. and elsewhere--politically, socially, culturally, environmentally. The challenge should now be not to inquire of our neighbor--where birth? what religion? what beliefs? What college did he/she graduate? But, how are you feeling? Are you eating? Sleeping? Working? What do you need? How can I help?

To stop caring so much about our opinions, our histories, our individualities, we must set aside the egos we have polished as assiduously as our nationalistic fervor in this country for ages and simply learn to co-exist in the present as we are with others, accepting differences, who and how we are in the moment, bringing forth our humanity and in so doing, perhaps calling forth that of others.