Sounds Good, Except…

I keep hearing that the first step toward re-finding American “unity” is to talk to the “other”.

I have always talked to anyone who was willing to talk to me.

I have always found a lot of friends – in previous times in my life – by talking to various people who turned out to be the “other”.

I didn’t agree with a lot of what they thought and they didn’t agree with a lot of what I thought but we found a surprising amount that we did agree upon – the fun of verbal jousting being high on the list – and we found friendship from the commonality of our views AND the unifying effect of comprehending the differences of many of the others of them.

Since these conversations usually involved food and drink, even in the worst of cases, we were able to enjoy one another while we ate, drank and disagreed.

So talking to the “other” has always seemed like an obvious thing to do from my point of view.

The problem is, in the current era, when I try to engage the “other” they either refuse to talk to me or, if they talk, they invoke a world view that I just can’t reconcile with anything I have ever experienced, heard about or read about.

I just can’t get anything meaningful initiated and I quickly become bored listening to a surrealistic monologue.