Summer Running Streak, Day #87

Eight miles tonight. 50 miles behind pace for my end of the year goal, which feels very attainable.

I've been thinking a lot about how we converse with one another, and trying to see the bigger picture on a wide variety of topics. I won't get into politics here, although I do think that is the obvious example of polarization, but it goes for any topic you can think of. As a species we seem naturally inclined to aim towards these safe bubbles where we are in the orbits of those we agree with.

 I think I did my best in education when I was around a lot of ideas I didn't agree with. The whole notion of learning per Piaget was that we need to shake up our intellectual equilibrium - he actually called it disequilibration - so that we could make progress. I like the fact that I associate regularly with very different types of people, and I feel that it has a lot of benefits. I learn lots of viewpoints, I try to consume a lot of types of culture. I have a really strange viewpoint on sports, having grown up as an artist and trying to approach movement from a craft level.

I guess what I think ultimately is that it is a good thing to disagree with people. We're stronger for disagreements. I think a certain amount of disrespect for contrarian viewpoints is even normal and acceptable, but I generally think we still should display kindness to each other. Some of the people I am the most opposite from are the people who help me the most in other areas of life, and I try to repay that favor.

I think once we lose the ability to show a base level of kindness for each other, in spite of our differences, then we're going to be in a lot of trouble. So that was a bit ramble-y, but being as vague as possible I think that's true. Maybe I'll ramble more on philosophy as time goes on.