Friendship that insists on agreement on all matters is not worth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be.
— Mohandas K. Gandhi

You don’t like disagreements?

Do you?

Arguments with others. Aggressive disturbances. A call to arms.

Disagreements don’t feel safe. Relationships end. So do friendships.

Things change, with disagreements, and you lose control.

And even if you do, like disagreements, even if you relish confrontation – it makes you come alive (or so you think) – you don’t like disagreements with yourself, conflicts of an inside kind.

What exactly is a disagreement, anyway?

Is it about seeing things differently? Is it about values, beliefs or morals? Is it about being right, or not being wrong? Is it about being who you say are? Is it about life or death, even?

What, exactly, is a disagreement anyway?

Let me come up with a few examples, so you can take a closer looksie at what a disagreement might look like. I’ll come up with several words that will most likely illicit a positive or negative response from you. And all because of what you think, of course, and what you’re aware of…

Margaret Thatcher, Hilary Clinton, Aung San Suu Kyi

Barack Obama, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King

Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, Justin Trudeau

Communism

Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush

Adolf Hitler, Atilla the Hun, Alexander the Great

Ludwig van Beethoven, Ludovico Einaudi, Leonard Bernstein

Consumerism

RnB, Thrash Metal, Hip Hop

Bill Hicks, Bill Murray, Bill Cosby,

Monty Python, Michael McIntyre, Mark Thomas

(And where are the women comedians in this list, I hear (some of) you ask?)

Capitalism. Stewart Lee. Ricky Gervais. Talking Heads. Atheism, Buddhism, Christianity. Ian Dury. Bob Marley. Elvis Presley.  Socialism. Aretha Franklyn, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday. Etcetera

There isn’t a ‘you’ alive that has the same response to these famous folks as another. There isn’t a ‘you’ alive who feels warmly about all of the isms above. There isn’t a ‘you’ alive who wouldn’t find something to disagree about with me when it comes to these comedy chums.

But what would we be disagreeing about?

Opinions. Viewpoints. Thoughts.

How things should be. What funny sounds like. Who represents genius, and who represents fraud. Now *that’s* what I call music (and THAT is what I don’t). Evil versus hero (but which is which?).

Etcetera.

A disagreement is merely a different way of seeing things. Events, persons, belief systems. And you don’t seem to like the fact that there are different ways of seeing things. Different ways of seeing yourself. Different ways of thinking.

You don’t like that, and neither do I.

Which makes as much sense as not liking the weather. Or that each days onlly has 24 hours in it. Or that we’re all gonna die, sooner or later.

Makes no sense. To not like disagreement. To not value difference. To be unique and yet be threatened by the uniqueness of others.

Makes no sense.

But still. There you are. You don’t like disagreements.

Do you?

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Agree with what I’ve shared here? Disagree? Still got questions? Then please leave a comment. ????