I think about differences a lot.
Differences are constantly thrown in our faces.
From Extroverts to Introverts, men to women, poor to rich. Black to white.
The stark differences and then the sub differences to each difference.
Upper class poor, middle class rich.
Celebrity men and women to common men and women, and everyone in between.
Introverted extroverts, extroverted introverts.
And we are even further divided.
Artists who use their right brain to mathematicians who use their left brain.
Moms and dads.
Corporate business men and women to those who work a nine to five.
Farmers to ranchers.
If you took each one of these subjects you could further divide them into individual classes and subs. Then those individual classes and subs could be even further divided, and so on and so on.
In front of me I have tacked up on my cork board a simple square of paper. With my purple pen in my messy-handed font I have written this:
Differences should not divide, differences should connect.
Yeah, and I'm the girl who just wishes she could have smarts and vivacity, to just be brave enough to talk to people already.
My mama, sister and I went to hear Temple Grandin speak. The place was packed. And through her whole talk this was her theme. We need differences.
On the way through a cold January night back to our car, clear across campus, I was just giddy with excitement because this was what I had been thinking for a long, long time. To hear someone else confirm my beliefs was just awe-inspiring.
My sister said to me as we shivered in the cold, "The dreamers and the artists can dream of flying, but we need the mathematicians and inventors to show us how."
Differences should not divide, differences should connect.
All throughout history you can see how our differences have connected us. You can also see how we've let it divide us. But it's because of our differences that we have all the technology and all the art we have today. And it's because of our differences we've found someone, something to help us cope with our fears, our troubles, our heartaches.
I still cannot fathom how someone's brain pieces worked just right to come up with the idea of a computer. Or why do some people cope better with trauma than others? How can someone know just what to say to soothe someone's hurting heart?
What would we do without any of these things?
If you stand back and take a look at the many varieties of people and places, the ones you understand or just don't get, if you take a moment to really see what good these things produce, then all the dividing lines start to blur, and like "pearls on a string" everything starts slowly slipping into place.
Feelers who live by their emotions NEED the thinkers to balance them out and the thinkers need feelers to show them the softer side and the needs of others. We need the artists to see the most mundane of tasks, to capture in words, in a lens, in a painting, in a song and show us how beautiful it is. Introverts NEED extroverts to stir the wild, to bolster courage, and drag them out of their comfort zones. Extroverts need Introverts to show them the quiet, the introspective.
And not one of these people think exactly alike. No one thinks exactly alike. But the things that occur to you may never occur to me. And that's why I need you.
Humans are the business of humans.
We're made of the same dirt and stardust.
Yeah, and there will be people who keep those lines drawn even when you have learned to see past them. You might laugh at me because I'm just an optimistic INFP who has a hard time facing reality and you're an Extrovert who knows the harder faces of life and I just don't know what I'm talking about. I know, and lines will keep being drawn over and over again, but the difference between you and me is just this:
When you choose to a see a line instead of a human.
When you cross the line of human sacredness and take what is not yours to take.
That's when you and me--we're divided.
I'm drawing no line. Because who ever you are, you're my business. You are why I'm here. And there really are no lines but the lines we draw between ourselves.
The world is full of opposites and contradictions, differences and contrasts.
Our differences are the most amazing things about us.
And the thing of it is, we're all made up of curves and corners, edges and points, and we all fit into the same great, immaculate puzzle. These are the only lines that should be drawn, the lines that show how we fit into the shape of this world.
Love, Kayla
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