The World is Only as Intolerant as You

June 11, 2014

I read about a Toledo girl with Progeria that has been bullied and humiliated by her fellow students. I’ve been attempting to wrap my mind around how children can be so cruel. I will not delve into questions of nature or nurture. That argument has gone on so long that perhaps its flawed. It’s an age old question of humanity that at its core requires finger pointing. Which is it? Which is the problem? Nature or nurture? We want to know so we can hate it!

Wiser men than me have said it, but it bears repeating. We can’t stop hate with hate. Anger with anger. Fear with fear. You don’t empty a pool by adding more water.

Tolerance should not be a subject that children have to be taught. It should be a way of life.

I’m not blessed. I’m not cursed. My friends are my friends because I see them for their flaws and their talents. I have friends that are black, white, rich, poor, male, female, gay, straight, old, and young. Their walks of life vary from musicians to politicians, lawyers to criminals, WASPs to bikers, Christians to Atheists, fighters to cowards, TV personalities, authors, journalists, actors, artists, laborers, doctors, nurses, teachers, preachers, and more. I know the difference in the feel of a blind man’s handshake. I’ve carried a crippled man to his wheelchair. Hell! I’ve even been the man it that wheelchair.

They all have and they all have not. That’s what it means to be human. That realization keeps us from just being tailless monkeys.

I won’t preach. I won’t teach. If you haven’t learned to live with your haves by embracing others’ have nots, then nothing I can say will change that.

I’d only ask that you look to what you have before you hurt someone for what they do not.

~Nick Shamhart