Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today is Wednesday, and it’s time for another post in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews. If you would like to participate in the challenge yourself, you can find the topics for 2024 here, and if you’d like to read other people’s responses to this week’s topic, you can do so here.
A Skill I Wish More People Had and Why
I wish more people had basic human skills such as empathy and compassion. I am often bewildered by the amount of hate in the world — particularly online. I wish more people understood that it is perfectly okay to have an opinion or point of view that differs from someone else.
It doesn’t mean you hate that person or you can’t have a sensible, intelligent conversation. It feels like, especially lately, that anyone who disagrees with someone else is some uncomprehending alien and that the fact they disagree is designed to deliberately hurt, offend or belittle.
It’s all about intention. If you’re not an absolute knob, then we can disagree and still be friends… or family, as the case may be.
Also, on human skills, simple kindness would be a terrific skill for more people to learn. It seems to be in very short supply these days, along with common sense.
Also, I wish more people could draw — including me. The world would be much calmer if more people had a creative outlet for their pent-up tensions and stresses, and drawing is a skill that eludes me — no matter how hard I try.
Well, that’s me for week 26.
As ever, thank you for stopping by to read my words.
Until next time,
George
© 2024 GLT
Categories: life, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge
GEORGE L THOMAS 
Good answers.
I’m awful at drawing but admire people who are good at it!
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Me too, Lydia! 🙂
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I completely agree. I actually really enjoy being able to have conversations with people who hold different beliefs or opinions to mine as long as we are both able to respect that difference. Every time I’ve had an intelligent, honestly interested conversation with someone about a difference in opinion, I’ve learned something. Not necessarily something that changes my mind, but something that helps me understand where the other person is coming from, that that informs my ability to have compassion and understanding for others whose beliefs or opinions are different from mine in the future. It’s such an important thing to be able to accept, learn from and understand difference rather than vilifying it.
I can’t draw very well either! 😂
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I agree entirely. It’s all about understanding that everyone is different. The world would be a terrible place if we all agreed on everything.
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Dittos! And the ability not to agree with everything that someone claims to be representing a large group of people, while practicing good will toward that group of people.
I’m still mulling someone’s claim that writing fiction with an ethnically diverse cast of characters is exploitative if your diverse characters don’t support that person’s opinion about what per group needs. Like, heavenforbidandfend that a White writer might know, and want to write about, a Black American like Thomas Sowell, or a lesbian like Florence King. Or, presumably, that a non-White writer might want to write about a White American like me.
As a woman I appreciate some things that Gloria Steinem said, wrote, and did. Even so, if you want to know what represents me, it’s a good idea to ask me rather than her.
And yes, more of us should recognize that knowing a few of the dissidents who exist in the real world does not make a person a hater or a bigot.
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As writers, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to write about any sort of character. I think so long as you make the character realistic and believable, then why not?
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Good answers. We all could use more empathy, and I would love to be able to draw.
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I believe that to properly empathise with the suffering of others, you have to have suffered yourself. Also, whatever someone is going through, unless you have experienced similar yourself, you have to consider it to be far worse than you imagine.
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