[Continued from HERE].

I guess this eyebrow-furrowing phenomenon might come from the fact that we Americans often extol the virtues of exchange and sharing ideas. We idolize conversation, debate, protracted salubrious spittle-infested blather. We cherish our soap boxes and our pseudo-mediatory dialogue with equal relish. And yet, in our modern incarnation, we find it incredibly difficult to actually read what someone has written, listen to what someone has said, without putting so much of ourselves in it that we completely lose the point of the person talking, sharing, elucidating, chit chatting, point making and verbal risk taking.

“Filter first, ask questions later,” could be our modern listening motto. Maybe it isn’t even that we want everyone to agree with us... maybe it is just that if someone doesn’t agree but does make sense, it is too difficult for our egos to accept that we might not have all the answers or even, gasp, that there might not be only one answer.

But it’s ok ... I can take it all. One thing adoption, combined with so many other tricky little bits life has brought my way, guaranteed, is that I have broad shoulders and can take the displacement, take the accusation, take the myopic interpretation coming from some fragile, insecure folks and be just fine with it all.

As a matter of fact, I might just laugh a bit about the whole thing. I might laugh about how serious we take ourselves and how we get obsessed about the price of tea but what we really are upset about is that we can’t control our access to that tea or maybe even how we brew it.

After a good giggle or two, I might then stand up, stretch, breath deep and jump in the ocean ... where every little thing DOES make sense, and there is no denying it.