Someone once told me that thinking different would result in loneliness and become socially outcast, even ignored because of the way I could think. At that moment I thought it was nonsense, but through experiences and discussions and frequently been called stubborn, I realize that my way of thinking actually puts me aside from the majority of the people, both physical and socially. At first, I grew inside of me some kind of anger and sense of discomfort when I gave my opinion on “any” subject and my point of view, well…kind of created reactions to my way of thinking. My first action obviously was to defend myself with all the support, information, and references I knew about that matter to show that I was right.
Oh, I was so wrong with that.
I've learned that thinking different do not mean that I am right and the others are wrong, or vice versa, it only means that I think different, that’s it, nothing more. However, at times I still had this little "thing" in my head telling me I might be on the right path about the way I rationalize the stuff that goes around in the world, but along the way, something happened.
I understood that if I want my opinion to exist and feel it like the right way, first I need to accept the differences and diversity of thinking and behavior, that doesn’t mean other people is less or inferior, just different as myself, and let me be clear in something, we can feel that maybe how some people think, behave, and act, might lead them to the wrong direction instead of a more evolved and progressive society, maybe the way some people rationalize things prevents them to grow as a humans and live with an open mind filled with curiosity. Yes, you can think that, but feeling superior for thinking different and discriminate is just plain wrong…..is it?
Sometimes if the majority thinks I’m wrong the most common reaction is that I might have some kind of problem for not seeing what "They" see and making me perhaps even intolerant just by being different.
We can all agree that Good and Wrong are human constructs to separate what gives us pleasure and what give us discomfort, in a very general way of describing it. What is wrong for someone might be good for someone else, and that’s the case in every human situation, there is always going to be a majority that thinks you are wrong in some things that you think are right, but we can’t have just black and white, there is a big gradient of shades in between that gives us diversity and a more rich and complete view of the world and the Universe.
We can all agree that Good and Wrong are human constructs to separate what gives us pleasure and what give us discomfort, in a very general way of describing it. What is wrong for someone might be good for someone else, and that’s the case in every human situation, there is always going to be a majority that thinks you are wrong in some things that you think are right, but we can’t have just black and white, there is a big gradient of shades in between that gives us diversity and a more rich and complete view of the world and the Universe.
But what really gets into my mind and give me a shortcut in my mental system is not the acceptance of a different opinion than mine, the thing that bothers me is that we as a society, as a human race we are lost in a billion ways of thinking and perceptions of what is good or bad getting lost in the way of defending our point of view or the rights of others, drawing borders and limits within ourselves. What is truly good and bad it’s an ongoing question since the beginning of human society, stipulating social paradigms that at a certain moment in time seemed ok, but eventually, as time and knowledge progress, we realize that maybe, just maybe we were wrong all along.
That situation is happening right now, people fighting for equality, against human and animal violence, human exploitation, etcetera, etcetera, and etcetera. Human society is always going to be in a constant evolution and progression, towards what end? I don’t know, but we keep evolving and changing, meaning we need to accept different ways of thinking and being able to integrate them in a tolerant and respectful environment. No one has the "Right" way of thinking, there is no absolute human true about anything, not religion, not science, not even the perception of ourselves, nothing is certain, but there'll be always something inside your head that'll tell you that perhaps, just perhaps what you are thinking and the whole social construct around you might be wrong because it just won’t take you or anyone else to a better society, whatever the concept of "Good" is around that time.
Some might say there are ways of thinking just plain wrong, universally wrong like genocide, torture, rape, slavery, violence. Perhaps they are right, and so far fighting against them has led the human race to a much better society, but we still have a long way to decipher what’s the best path to take and I think the main problem is that we still don’t see the human race as that, as all humans, not the same, different but all of us as humans, sadly with no main objective as a race.
Most of the advanced societies and organizations that function all share one thing in common: a main objective, the thing missing in our world and in our own humanity, we lack of a main objective, I don’t mean like the reason of life, just a shared goal as a global society. I know it is going to be hard but I think that we are at a point in life when we humans need to set main objectives for our race, the Human Race, including all parts of the society and integrate all different opinions and use them in the best way possible to achieve those goals.
With this, I’m not trying to impose any way of thinking or saying that it should be only one this way the right way for the world, no, not at all. There are billions of humans in this world and everyone with a different opinion and a different way of understanding the world and because of that we have infinite ways of doing things, but we need to stop seeing our differences as a problem and start thinking as a whole, as only one race, the human race includes all, some ways of thinking will help us to obtain the Main Goal of humanity, whatever will it be, and some others will oppose resistance and even take us back in the struggle of our well-being, but we need to start with something and that’s the acknowledgement of diversity of opinions within a respectful and inclusive paradigm, not an environment where you get discriminated, alienated or diminish just for being different, let us celebrate ourselves and all the possibilities that we humans have no matter what, and above all accept that you are different from me and that is the best thing humanity might celebrate, DIFFERENCE.