A simple question for you in this moment of extreme division in our country.

What do you KNOW is true?

It’s a funny thing about “facts” and “proving things.” Let’s take something I would consider an indisputable fact.

The sun is 93 million miles from Earth.

I can point you to NASA’s website, which will affirm this. NASA—a pretty reliable entity when it comes to astrophysics, few would argue against that. I can refer you to countless other sources that would also affirm this statistic. In fact, I think we’d have trouble finding a single source saying otherwise.

So, what have I proven?

I’ve proven that a thousand sources agree the sun is 93 million miles from Earth.

But I haven’t proven that it’s a fact. Not at all.

To do that we’d have to have access to sophisticated instruments. We’d have to know how to use them and what they were telling us. We’d have to have complete and perfect knowledge assuring us the instruments were perfectly constructed, properly maintained, and absolutely accurate. I imagine we’d need some pretty awesome math skills. Then, and only then, might you and I walk away feeling that we knew as a fact that the sun is 93 million miles from Earth.

Almost no one on the planet possesses all this knowledge.

How much less accurate, reliable, measurable, testable is the information we get from CNN or FOX or the Wall Street Journal or the New Yorker? How slanted is this reporting? How tainted by agenda, greed, and power? Yet we all love to speak as if we KNOW all kinds of shit we most certainly do not. (And how infinitely unreliable must we concede are most random social media posts claiming vast, comprehensive, and accurate knowledge about politics, economics, or a thousand other topics?)

Now, I’m no different than anyone. I tend to believe this source over that source. I have a view. It leans a certain way. I tend to consume news and value opinions that support what I already believe.

I, probably like you, definitely find one of the current presidential candidates more frightening than the other.

However.

Do I think the bloody apocalypse could be ushered in under the watch of my preferred candidate? I sure effing do. Do I think my side possesses all the truth and never engages in subterfuge? I absolutely do not.

The game is bad. The players are bad. We’re being lied to by both sides. It’s true now. It’s always been true.

It’s a shame if we hate half of Americans. It’s a shame if we write off lifelong friends or beloved family members because they wear a hat we despise or display a certain bumper sticker on their Tesla that irks us no end.

Humanity is bigger than politics. Love is bigger than politics.

Let go of the egoic need to be right. Love your ideological enemies. It’s the only hope we have as a species. We must sincerely try to understand each other. Accept, forgive, and love each other. Hell, even try to lovingly nudge others toward what you see as the more rational, compassionate view.

Condescension and self-righteousness—they aren’t gonna do anything but widen the gap.

I know there are people who legitimately feel they are literally, existentially, endangered by “the agenda of the other side.” And I empathize with them profoundly. They have a sense of the “stakes” here that rises to the level of sheer panic. The scary/sad/tragic thing is that many of those people on the other side feel precisely the same way about the agenda of your side: they feel that it literally, existentially, threatens human civilization.

It’s a tough place to imagine compromise. But we must. Somehow.

And love is far more likely to accomplish that than hate.

We are made by genetics and environment. If you would’ve gone home with the wrong family on the day you were born, you might very well believe exactly what those people who you think are so reprehensible believe.

Vote your conscience. Fight for what you believe.

But don’t hate who you might have been in another life. It just zaps your soul of joy.

Anyway. That’s my bullshit.

I could be wrong.

Have a nice day. Be kind to others and to yourself. Enjoy being alive. It’s pretty amazing.

(PS. If you comment, please do so, if you can, in the spirit of this post: the spirit of generous neutrality seeking compromise and understanding through love. Thanks.)