How I see it...

I am beginning to think that there are as many ways of looking at the world/being in the world as there are people in it. 

It is very convienent to believe that we all share a common sense of reality and that the things that are obvious to you are also obvious to me, but that is not necessarily the way things are. 

Everyone has this story of how the world is inside of them. This story has been shaped by their family, friends, culture, experiences and how their own unique brain has decided to file all these things. Quite frankly, I think it's amazing that any of us share enough common thoughts to hold together any cohesive society at all. 

I suspect that this rift of world views may be a source of so much of our conflict. When someone does something that doesn't line up with how we see the world, instead of trying to understand the reasons behind their actions, we are quick to judge. We call them evil, or think there is something wrong with them. We are afraid. Then it becomes much easier to take action to defend ourselves against them. They are evil after all... 

Trying to understand someone else's way of seeing the world is hard. It means you may have to be slow to anger, putting aside defensiveness for a time. It means you might have to seek forgiveness where you might really want to justify your own actions. You might have to re-evaluate your own beliefs, or agree to disagree in order to allow another person to feel like they have really been understood.

Not that I think everyone has "good" and "right" reasons for everything they do.. Heaven knows I don't! But just that understanding is a much better way than fear and hate.

I am pretty sure there are other ways of seeing these things that make more sense then this :-) Eveyones thoughts are welcome here.