I've been thinking quite a bit recently about how difficult it is to truly be supportive of other people's individuality. It's hard even with my friends, let alone with people I barely know or don't know at all. One of the amazing things about human beings is how different we all are, and the older I get, the more I realize how true that is. But our differences aren't just a matter of liking different kinds of music, or whether or not we love horror movies, or we say sneakers or tennis shoes or trainers.
For example-- a simple one, just among my friends-- I'm not a person who puts a high value on fashion, hair, and makeup. It's not that I don't care at all, but I definitely don't care enough to put a lot of time into it. My clothes are clean and in good repair, and they're within the larger boundaries of what is currently in style (was that vague enough?), but most of the time I probably look more like a grad student than a real adult.
Which is fine with me. The thought of putting more effort into my appearance exhausts me before I've even tried, and honestly, I've never recovered from my 80s feminist thing about fashion and beauty being an enormous waste of time and money meant to distract women from accomplishing more important things.
But I have friends who dress well and care about their hair and have put some thought into the makeup they wear. They have a definite personal style. It's important to them that they look put together and stylish when they go out. I get that, but I don't do that. In fact, if I'm being honest, I can't do that, because style is not something that I understand or value.
Obviously, I can be supportive (and slightly envious) of my friends who are more into this than I am. They look measurably better than I do when we get together for lunch or whatever. And of course they can be tolerant of my lack of care, because they (I hope) like me and want to get together.
But there's a fundamental disconnect, too. Because I refuse to put much time into my appearance, I am saying that those things are not important. And because my friends do put a lot of thought and effort into their appearance, I'm de-valuing something that is meaningful to them.
It's kind of a dumb example, but it's the easiest one I could think of to say something that is actually really important to figure out about how to have civil discourse. How do we really, truly honor someone else's values and choices and opinions, when that someone's choices undermine our own choices, or go contrary to something that is important or even dear to us?
Because obviously we are having this problem in our country right now about a lot of things that are way more important than what we wear to go out to lunch. How does someone with exuberant sexuality express that without making her friend who is more reserved feel like a prude? How does someone who believes that religion is the cause of endless evil in our world support someone whose religion is her deepest, most cherished set of beliefs? I could go on for paragraphs.
It's not easy. Or simple. And I think in order for it to truly be mutual, it takes awareness on both sides. I comprehensively disagree with you but I value you as a human being, and I support your right to make the choices you do-- that understanding has to be coming from both sides. All sides. Maybe our common ground is how strongly we hold our convictions, even if our convictions are very different.
I don't know. This isn't very well-reasoned, I know, because even though I've been thinking about this quite a bit recently, I don't have any answers. Hmmm. I started to go off on a tangent here, but it's late, and this is probably already long enough. More some other time. Have a good weekend.
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