by G E Barr

Created on: May 18, 2009   Last Updated: May 19, 2009

Tolerance

The key to living tolerance is to understand that all people are different and have survived different scenarios in their childhoods and early adult lives. Personally, I love minding my own business. It frees me to mind even more of my own business. Morally and intellectually, I live my own life. I make my own decisions. I decide what course of action or inaction will be. I'm an adult, so this is all to be expected.

Boundaries and personal preferences are common to human beings. It goes with the territory of being a thinker.

When we are tolerant of different lifestyles, it shows basic societal respect. We cannot all be alike. Unfortunately, some folks take the tolerance to mean that anything goes and they get sloppy. They begin to get their "different lifestyle" on you. When this occurs, I am usually kindly articulate in the first reminder of my own boundaries and personal preferences. After the first and second encounters with stupidity, I am not kind.

I've known all kinds of people in my time. Tattooed and pierced. Rich, Poor, Middle Class, Brilliant, Beautifully Talented, Ignorant, Stupid, Astute, Bulimic, Emo, Hick, Snobs, Insane, Religious, Free Thinkers, Free Spirits, Alcoholics, Drug Addicts, Drug Dealers, Gay, Bisexual, Heterosexual, Animalistic, Abusers, Users, Victims...

I've seen alot. I've seen situations where people have become lifelong victims. Not because they wanted to be, but because they were hopelessly caught in a maze of political incest and religion. It is a very sad scenario and it destroys potential, not to mention minds. I'm not a fan of this way of life.

But I must tolerate the different lifestyles around me. How I tolerate is simply by ignoring things. There's not much else I can do. Ignoring is a big part of tolerance. There is alot of insanity in society today. There doesn't seem to be a bold move to fix it. "It" works, goes to school, buys houses and cars and makes a hell of a show. We call it by it's "class".

Most people in America think of tolerance as a "good thing". And to an extent it is. Human beings are thinkers and as such prone to be different.

I'm really no moralist, but I do see where we're headed with too much tolerance and it won't be good. My belief is that all people are born innocent and life whittles them into other things. There are levels of things and we all have our personal preferences.

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