OPEN
My objective is to become as open-minded as possible, and to bring as many people along as I can.
And I don’t mean open-minded in just a “different cultures and foods are great” kind of way. I mean open-minded in the sense where I can see that even the “worst” people are human. Even the most racist, vile, hateful pieces of shit are human on some level and I want to have compassion for that. I want to have compassion for the part of them that suffers so deeply, that they lash out and hurt others.
I suffer, you suffer, we all suffer. We can have compassion for that suffering. We can have compassion for the person who was born, just as we were, with a loving heart. Hate is a learned behavior. We can set aside judgement and hatred and truly open our hearts and minds to see that hating the haters gets us nowhere, that loving each other, even those we think don’t deserve it, is the path to true liberation. This doesn’t mean we allow hate, or we accept racism, it means we refuse to fall into the same game. We fight hate with love. We refuse to hate even those who would harm us.
We don’t get to take our anger with us when we die, but we can certainly leave our love behind. Then it can keep doing good for many years after we’ve passed.