When one person represents principle.

And the other represents humanism.

There is an obvious divide.

The person representing humanism experiences his/her counterpart as insensitive.

The person representing principle experiences his/her counterpart as overly sensitive.

This divide exists everywhere.

In our individual relationships (rational/logic vs. emotional).

In our offices (top-down vs. bottom up organizational hierarchy).

In our public policy (right vs. left).

In our gender (man vs. woman).

Universal law states that everything contains its opposite. We experience this regularly in our lives without ever really noticing.

And it exists on a spectrum. Which means that the humanist and the principlist are the same. They are actually one. So are the man and the woman, the left and the right, the top-down and the bottom up.

Here's the thing. We think it's about power, and access, and titles and whatever. And so when we don't know how to be understood, we feel defeated.

But it's actually not about being understood. It's about the individual human. It of course seems enormous and overwhelming when you look at an entire political system and you think gosh that's so big there's no way I could change that without totally losing my shit, but when you really drill it down, it's you, and it's me. Being understood is a construct of the mind and the intellect.

So I like to ask: what is there to know about this person, right in front of me, beyond their attachment to their beliefs? Beyond their identity, beyond their associations, beyond their gender, beyond their political party affiliation, beyond their title at the office? What makes them human and how is that similar to what makes me human?

And I connect there. Right in the crux of the human experience. Then the divide disintegrates.

Because once I've done that exercise, I remember that we are all the same and so to hate someone is to hate me, and I don't really want to hate myself. It also helps me remember that if I experience my polarity as toxic/broken/dysfunctional/irrational/insensitive, chances are likely that so am I.