How about we try to understand each other....

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*sigh*

Today something happened here on Twine, that put a bit of a scratch on my feelings. A very dear friend decided to disconnect himself from me and 2 of my friends, over the content of a song posted here on my twine. I'm not here to try to determine whether this song was actually offensive or not [I wouldn't even be qualified to do so.. I try to keep myself as far from politics as I possibly can, given that it didn't do me much good in a past life], in fact I'm trying to say that this was very much a matter of personal opinion. Apparently to some of us this song came through as much more offensive as to the rest of us.

But here's what I think. We, here on twine, are from allover the world. We have different beliefs, different cultures, different religious views, different taste in music, different mind-sets, different everything. From my point of view, this makes it that much more interesting to interact with everyone here. This also means that we can not possibly agree on everything. What I find beautiful you may find ugly, what I find right you may find wrong. Aside from some very basic ideas that I suppose we all share, everything can be different, and that's how it's supposed to be. We can learn from each other, educate each other, and in many cases we may simply agree to peacefully disagree.

And sure as sun will rise tomorrow morning, there are and will be times that those disagreements would get quite heated. When someone feels that something dear to them is getting offended, there will be reactions, and there will be overreactions. That is of course very natural, and I have to say that in no way I'm encouraging "being offensive" here. But because of all those differences, every time one of us comes across something that we feel offended by, perhaps we should take a deep breath, close our eyes for a second and put ourselves in the shoes of the supposed offender. Perhaps from their point of view, they're [for instance] poking harmless fun. Perhaps they simply don't see it the way we do. That's when we have a choice, we can either try to understand the other party's views, and try to be somewhat tolerant, or even try to explain to them why they may be at the wrong, or we can of course disengage from further contact. But then, to bring a personal example, if I were to follow the 2nd option, I really would be a very lonely person now given all the heavy and dark criticism that's going about regarding my homeland [in case anyone here doesn't know already, I was born and raised in Iran].

There have been times when I have fought hard for the honour of something that I hold dear. There have been times that I have had "the explosions". But as a general rule, before any of that, I have always tried to understand, and see things from all possible corners. I have found this to be quite constructive, but then again, this may also not be something for all of us.

But somehow, I only wish it was....

*sigh*

*sigh*

Today something happened here on Twine, that put a bit of a scratch on my feelings. A very dear friend decided to disconnect himself from me and 2 of my friends, over the content of a song posted here on my twine. I'm not here to try to determine whether this song was actually offensive or not [I wouldn't even be qualified to do so.. I try to keep myself as far from politics as I possibly can, given that it didn't do me much good in a past life], in fact I'm trying to say that this was very much a matter of personal opinion. Apparently to some of us this song came through as much more offensive as to the rest of us.

But here's what I think. We, here on twine, are from allover the world. We have different beliefs, different cultures, different religious views, different taste in music, different mind-sets, different everything. From my point of view, this makes it that much more interesting to interact with everyone here. This also means that we can not possibly agree on everything. What I find beautiful you may find ugly, what I find right you may find wrong. Aside from some very basic ideas that I suppose we all share, everything can be different, and that's how it's supposed to be. We can learn from each other, educate each other, and in many cases we may simply agree to peacefully disagree.

And sure as sun will rise tomorrow morning, there are and will be times that those disagreements would get quite heated. When someone feels that something dear to them is getting offended, there will be reactions, and there will be overreactions. That is of course very natural, and I have to say that in no way I'm encouraging "being offensive" here. But because of all those differences, every time one of us comes across something that we feel offended by, perhaps we should take a deep breath, close our eyes for a second and put ourselves in the shoes of the supposed offender. Perhaps from their point of view, they're [for instance] poking harmless fun. Perhaps they simply don't see it the way we do. That's when we have a choice, we can either try to understand the other party's views, and try to be somewhat tolerant, or even try to explain to them why they may be at the wrong, or we can of course disengage from further contact. But then, to bring a personal example, if I were to follow the 2nd option, I really would be a very lonely person now given all the heavy and dark criticism that's going about regarding my homeland [in case anyone here doesn't know already, I was born and raised in Iran].

There have been times when I have fought hard for the honour of something that I hold dear. There have been times that I have had "the explosions". But as a general rule, before any of that, I have always tried to understand, and see things from all possible corners. I have found this to be quite constructive, but then again, this may also not be something for all of us.

But somehow, I only wish it was....

*sigh*