Differential complexity
Disclaimer : By differences I mean differences in day to day interactions and a specific individual quality that makes a person different without affecting others liberty
I was reading browsing through the askreddit sub for anything interesting and suddenly a question caught my attention “When was the last time you cried, and why?” . Most of the answers were about having a incurable disease, depression, when someone passed way, etc. I was scrolling down the answers with people sharing similar experiences and come across the below:
Nurse here. My patient took out his prosthetic upper pallet in his mouth to reveal the bullet hole where he shot himself 6 years ago. He told me he was so glad it didn’t work because he would never meet people like me that make his life easier. I immediately went to the locker room and cried and cried all the way home tonight. He has no idea I’ve been suicidal for months.
It seemed like a normal compliment over a nurse by a patient for looking after him with some reference to his suicidal attempt and its easy for the nurse to get emotional until I read the last sentence “He has no idea I’ve been suicidal for months”. It completely changed view over the whole answer and hit me so hard that it was to be one of the best things I have read for the time and I keep re-reading it periodically because receiving the compliment and then realising the person who is receiving it was also suicidal is something I can’t imagine. The words that have been used to communicate it are also simple yet made a profound positive impact on me.
A better world with differences
Due to a constant struggle between getting one perspective to be dominant over other, sometimes its the difference that increases the value of the given success. Let us take a simple example you have an exam/contest/position which is very hard to crack for a X set of people and everyone wants the other to have equal chance. Yet if you see two people winning the same thing and other being X (Well have to say it for example purpose, feel free to judge) people get to celebrate the X’s victory only if it has been specifically labelled as an X who has won out of all the odds. We see it as the struggle to maintain equality is yielding the fruits but all the efforts were put by the winner was to win it and he/she wants to be celebrated for winning and not for being winning it even though he/she is an “X”.
Even though everyone gets to enjoy their differences they just wanted to be same as others with their differences. They want more engagement in the society as a normal one and don’t want others to be enthusiastic about their “X” which might seem to be good from your point of view but none wants to be labelled with more attention over their “X”. So the fight for equality should be in such a way that it should enable society to be a better place for everyone and everyone wants to be different and no one wants to be celebrated over their difference.
So its a constant struggle over getting used to the differences and many would wonder from the topic today ok this is all too complex and we need converge towards a single unified idea so that life gets easier. Well, good luck convincing 7 billion people on that because it just never works at such a scale. The fundamental thing that keeps life going is the amount of diversity you get to see and there is no single model that will work even if its feasible in the long term. This has been one of the important lessons all the revolutions and evolutions have thought over the past that difference in thoughts are basic elements that foster growth. The complexity is not caused by the difference itself but by our perspective towards it.
The other side of the coin
In due course of life more often as you lose a competition, hate a X, see someone as Y, relationships that don’t work out, etc. Its pretty easy to get into a judgement mode but we don’t get see the whole coin every time. You can really see the difference between the below sentence and the above :
Nurse here. My patient took out his prosthetic upper pallet in his mouth to reveal the bullet hole where he shot himself 6 years ago. He told me he was so glad it didn’t work because he would never meet people like me that make his life easier. I immediately went to the locker room and cried and cried all the way home tonight.
How often do you get to see the much required sentence in life that changes the perspective ? With humans there is an increased probability that you don’t get it. The complexity involved in human interaction due to our emotions are also too high that we can fail to communicate and its neither ones fault in the grand scheme of things but may result in hatred which could have been avoided with a single sentence. So the complexity in differences are not the differences themselves but our proactive actions towards it and the person in question. Its those little actions to handle things in a better way that enables increased maturity and sadly has to happen over a period a bad experiences that will be good to you as you get to experience them.
This is the case with other side too as you get to see a piece of news, ideology etc. Its way too easy to get swayed away by making too much sensationalism out of a piece of words in the way its written that it ends up projecting a mistaken image over the people involved. I am not saying that is always the case with news, I am saying its way too easy and its just something you need to consider the next time you disagree with someone on the internet. Unless you are the person involved in the incident its pretty easy that both of them were wrong yet end up with hatred notions towards each other because of the mistaken projection that may be intentional or unintentional and the complexity involved.
The other important thing has been the fact that these things enables a person to make personal attacks on the other just because they disagree on the given topic as a method to subjugate the other side. It also prompts usage of hate speech over the course of the argument which could have been a more civil argument on a platform. But over the course of experiences a person gets to handle it better when they start to learn but the initial vulnerability to this is inevitable.
tldr : More often you miss the crucial piece of information. So instead of making judgements, embrace and experience life instead of hatred towards each other because humans fail to communicate properly or do intentional sensationalism.
Maybe I am missing a sentence above on a Sunday midnight rant that makes you disagree with me or judge me. Such is life :)
2 AM, Monday (Technically) : Goes to sleep