Thursday, January 14, 2016

If I could hear your thoughts....

A few years ago I started writing a story about a woman who could "hear" people's thoughts. The things she heard were so disturbing that it drove her insane. I stopped writing the story as it seemed perhaps too much to ask people to suspend disbelief about hearing thoughts AND that so many of the thoughts were dark enough to overwhelm someone.
Today I'm thinking that perhaps there are a lot of people with really disturbing thoughts that could totally overwhelm a gentle person if she heard them. Donald Trump is raising the reality. It's not at all surprising that there are people like him that embrace cruelty, hatred, and enjoy berating and belittling anyone whom they consider "other" than them. What's disturbing is that so many people applaud his noxious tactics and words. In fact, they claim that he's just saying what they are thinking but for some reason don't say. I'm thankful I cannot hear what they are thinking. I'm disturbed to imagine that Donald Trump is representative of the types of things I may hear if I could.
How did we descend into this rabbit hole of darkness? I understand a desire for great change but not change into dark thoughts, cruel actions and hardening of our hearts. We need the opposite. We need to build bridges with one another, build trust, collaborate on solutions - none of which will happen if we embrace name calling and divisive thoughts and deeds.
Darkness will not create light. Division will not create solutions.
I would like to believe Americans are better than this.

1 comment:

  1. I used to teach my 8th graders about the holocaust. I learned about the fears about safety and economic instability in Germany that set the stage for people to look at others as the scapegoat and cause of their problems. Trump is feeding that fear and ignorance with vitriol and hated and people are so blinded they do not see truth. We who are able to see him for what he is, are appalled. Trump is more threatening to America than ISIS.

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