We are comfortable with extremes

I think that one of the things that is coming out in our country is that we tend to be “political” or “continuum” thinkers. We see and communicate things on lines of Republican/Democrat, Conservative/Liberal, etc. This kind of thinking is comfortable. It’s easier to graph – you just draw a line, put one view on one end, the other on the other end and say there is some in-between. Real life is not always something that fits in a formula or a continuum. We can’t always understand an issue by putting it on a 2-dimensional line. Wisdom takes hard work, struggle, a willingness to listen, to be patient, to feel uncomfortable and challenged, and a willingness to be wrong, and a willingness to stand up for what is right. I think we all have felt the frustration of being misunderstood, because things are so “politicized”. And we have all misunderstood others. We are human, we tend to err. And we will err. I do on a multi-day basis. But that doesn’t mean it should stop us from learning and pursuing wisdom.