the tiniest of dialogues on World Peace

Today is a Tuesday morning.  I have the air conditioning on, and the door open.  Very wasteful, but cool, and with refreshing clean air.  That’s one thing that’s hard about living in Charleston.  Once it starts getting hot out (now), you have to blast the air conditioning to live and breathe, and basically never get fresh air, unless you do what I’m doing, and throw caution to the wind.

I can’t tell you how amazing it’s been driving all the travelers around for the past year.  Living in a regional place has its perks (cuisine and geography, for two) but for someone who is not a native, its hard every now and then.

I think we all use what we have to siphon our aggression and frustration.  Meaning if I am a Southerner and I feel bad, I may from time to time spew some hate about Northerners.  Just because I need somewhere for my hate to go.  It could be black/white, gay/straight, rich/poor, but I think it’s a quite normal, if not pretty, human habit.

So for me, a Northerner living in the South, when the novelty wore off, about four years into it, I started getting slightly annoyed and even hurt at all the (what seemed) unearned bad feelings coming my way from the locals.  But then I started driving for Uber (no this is not an advertisement) and I feel normal again.

Yes, there are trillions of people in the world who are not Southern by birth and this past year I think I’ve met about a third of them.  Hooray!!!  And Southerners are probably saying just leave if you don’t like it.  But I do like it.  That’s the thing.  

And besides, I think it happens everywhere.  Hate.  I think it’s a by-product of frustration.  And feeling scared.

Every day I try to, in whatever way I can, limit my own feelings of frustration and fear, so that I can be a good person, and a generous person and helpful person.  And I look around me, I see people who are so nice, and I think you know they should be nice.  Look at their lives, look at all they have, and all they are able to do, there is no reason they should not be nice, supportive and kind to everyone they meet.

And then I look around and I see people who have nothing and who are struggling so hard, at every turn, and I wonder how can they be nice to anyone?  Their lives are so hard.

Anyway, for my part, I just try to do the best I can.  If I am feeling hateful, I try to think, what am I frustrated about?  What, in me/my life, can I change.  And no change is never easy, but little by little, it is possible, I have found, to make a difference.