And now, a non-partisan rant about politics and the state of the world:

It hurts to see people being attacked for sharing their fears and grief. Someone will hear about some tragic attack or disaster in some part of the world, but when they try to show grief or sympathy, others scream out “why are you sad about that? look at this other thing that’s also happening! How dare you!” Or someone will show concern about a political issue (take your pick) and others yell at them, calling them stupid, or murderers, or racist.

I see a general trend when it comes to these aggressive and dismissive statements. It shows an opaque separation between the two people involved. The speaker does not feel a connection to the receiver. They are divided. They are different.

An important conversation happens at the end of Orson Scott Card’s book Speaker for the Dead between the main character and one of the aliens he’s trying to create a treaty with. The aliens have a tribal culture, and those living in different forests are from different tribes and considered enemies.

The main character, Ender, tells the alien, Human that if they are going to make this treaty his people must stop going to war with the other tribes. Human gives a speech about all the effort they’ve gone through to grow stronger than other tribes, all the dreams that would shatter if they could not become mighty and great like the humans. This is Ender’s response:

“Your dream is a good one,” said Ender. “It’s the dream of every living creature. The desire that is the very root of life itself: To grow until all the space you can see is part of you, under your control. It’s the desire for greatness. There are two ways, though, to fulfill it. One way is to kill anything that is not yourself, to swallow it up or destroy it, until nothing is left to oppose you. But that way is evil. You say to all the universe, ‘Only I will be great, and to make room for me the rest of you must give up even what you already have, and become nothing.’ Do you understand, Human, that if we humans felt this way, acted this way, we could kill every [alien on this planet] and make this place our home. How much of your dream would be left, if we were evil?”

Human asks why they were so nice in giving gifts and teaching them new technology if they couldn’t use it to become great?

“We want you to grow, to travel among the stars. Here … we want you to be strong and powerful…. But why does a single [alien] in any other forest have to die, just so you can have these gifts? Any why would it hurt you in any way, if we also gave the same gifts to them?”

“If they become just as strong as we are, then what have we gained?”

Ender then asks whether Human’s father is “great.”

Human says he is, because he’s had so many children.

Ender says, “So in a way, all the children that he fathered are still part of him. The more children he fathers, the greater he becomes. … And the more you accomplish in your life, the greater you make your father, is that true?” Human agrees.

“Do you have to kill all the other great [fathers] in order for your father to be great?”

Ender then points to the women of the tribe who cannot have their own children and act as caretakers and government. “They have no children. They can never be great the way your father is great.”

Human retorts, “you know that they’re the greatest of all. The whole tribe obeys them. When they rule us well, the tribe prospers; when the tribe becomes many, then [they] are also made strong”

“Even though not a single one of you is their own child? … And yet you add to their greatness. Even though they aren’t your mother or your father, they still grow when you grow.”

“We’re all the same tribe…”

“But why are you the same tribe? You have different fathers, different mothers.”

“Because we are the tribe! We live here in the forest, we –”

“If another [alien] came here from another tribe, and asked you to let him stay and be a brother –”

Human insists they would never let them into the tribe or have children. But Ender reminds him that the tribe accepted humans in the past.

“I see. They were part of the tribe. From the sky, but we made them brothers and tried to make them fathers. The tribe is whatever we believe it is. If we say the tribe is all Little Ones in the forest, and all the trees, then that is what the tribe is. Even though some of the oldest [fathers] here came from warriors of two different tribes… We become one tribe because we say we’re one tribe.”

Human continues, “You humans grow by making us part of you… Then we are one tribe, and our greatness is your greatness, and yours is ours. …You say to us, we must see all other tribes the same way. As one tribe, our tribe all together, so that we grow by making them grow.”

I love that conversation, because it teaches such a powerful concept: your family, your culture, your self, includes who you say it includes. You love your family because you consider them a part of you. You love your culture because you consider it a part of you. You love your nation because you consider it a part of you. So why, in your quest to grow stronger and accomplish your dreams, does anyone else need to be destroyed? If you see everyone as part of your family, as part of your self, then their strength and dreams are your strength and dreams.

Humans understand the world by comparing and separating things. Squares aren’t circles, but they are both shapes. Dogs aren’t cats, but they are both animals. It’s how we separate danger from safety, good from bad.

But it’s also how we separate “me” from “not me.” Our feelings and experiences are part of “me.” And if we can’t share these deepest parts of us with someone else, how can they also be part of “me.” How can that person thousands of miles away be a part of me? How can that person who looks different, who believes different, who talks different, be a part of me? They are different. I don’t know them.

And if we continue to separate “us” from “them” it becomes easy to see “them” as crazy, or dangerous, or evil.

But, why don’t we feel the same way about our family? They are also separate individuals. We don’t feel their feelings, we haven’t experienced their experiences. Why do we consider them part of us, but not those people in another country, another race, another religion?

Our family is part of us because we believe they are part of us. And then to make it true, we talk to them, we listen to them, we share our self with them. Language, race, religion. None of these are barriers between real family. It’s when we cease sharing ourselves with others that we begin to believe they are no longer part of us. Friends grow apart when they stop sharing themselves. Families grow apart when they stop sharing themselves. Nations grow apart when they stop sharing themselves.

I don’t know what advice to give you. I don’t know what to say to make you stop fighting and start sharing. I don’t know how to make you see those people on the other side of the street as family, let alone those people on the other side of the world.

We use our differences to divide us, but I prefer to see our differences as beautiful. We disagree on how to accomplish the same thing, and see that disagreement as something bad. If our problems weren’t difficult, they wouldn’t be problems.

So please, now that you’ve read this, now that I’ve shared a bit of me with you, share a bit of you with me. Help me see you as part of me, and try to see me as part of you. Because if we believe we are all one tribe, we are.