Different People, Different Passions

I haven’t always been this way, but I avoid confrontation and the threat of confrontation in general these days, avoid social and political issues, though I often pay close attention to people's opinions because they are so indicative of their frameworks, of their symbols, of their passions, and of the meaning and significance they find in being alive. The flip side of feeling there are so few people I can have a thoughtful topical discussion with is that there are so many people with whom I may discuss their opinions and passions, their frameworks and symbols, their life meaning and life significance.

Of course on one hand I can afford to ignore so many issues because my social and political circumstances allow me to ignore. Yet on the other hand it occurs to me people may have been ignoring and watching other people for millennia even when it may have behooved them not to; and I like to think they simply liked their particular outlook, attitude and framework more than they feared whatever social and political threat they faced. Of course on the more cynical hand, they may have feared changing their particular outlook, attitude and framework (or feared the consequences of standing up in society) more than they liked what they could have stood up for. Yet all these people, their attitudes, passions, symbols - their lives and the significance of their lives are different, and I can’t help but think, different isn't necessarily wrong.

So while there lurk issues of immediate relevance to the subjects I generally explore, such as female supremacy for example, I simply avoid it. It isn't just that any sort of supremacy isn't my thing (and it isn't), it's more accurate to say I have different passions, different symbols and a different framework. So I don’t argue, I either watch in fascination or ignore, as with so many social and political issues; while these things matter to people and matter to current life and the living of current life they are fully functioning symbols and flashpoints to people just as much as people who firmly believe and hold opposing points of view.

Yet a line must be drawn; at some point I have to say I am going to do something about this issue – but without an current exemplative issue I have a hard time knowing quite where to draw that line.