I don't want to be right anymore

I absolutely fucking hate Fuckhead. He just makes me depressed about the world. He said he gave up communicating with me a long time ago (which is actually a resignation that I initiated), and it's true. We absolutely can't communicate. It just seems like two human beings should never be so utterly incapable of understanding each other. Of course, I think I understand him, but I feel entirely misunderstood by him. And this is because I feel total disapproval from him, and I, honestly, don't think any human being attempting life ever deserves total disapproval. Least of all, me, especially if we're talking about disapproval due to my theological beliefs.

That son of a bitch makes me want to give up on Christianity, it's true. I hate him for that. He chokes all the faith that is rising in me. I should really just try to forget that Christians like that exist. But ignoring them doesn't make them go away. I see why Matt says he is the epitome of what Christianity is, and I don't want to agree. It is so compassionless and arrogant. I really hope there is something fundamentally different about the way I engage in a conversation from the way he does.

I don't think he deserves a voice. Is that unfair? It takes me back to that Pascal quote: "If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of intolerance, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them...it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer questions by the use of their fists or pistols." Not that I think he's gonna resort to fists or pistols. unless we're talking about the emotional kind.

The thing is, he lives in a world where absolutely nothing can challenge him, absolutely nothing can be plausible, except what he believes. And I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that's an exaggeration, but it's not. He has, in his own strange way, lots of reasons and common sense to explain why he thinks what he thinks, and it does make sense, but in the way a schizophrenic's paranoia makes sense. It all logically fits together, but you can sense that it is missing something.

And the problem is that no, there is absolutely no way I could ever come to a peaceable understanding with him, unless I concede that he is right, singularly universally right, unless I let his position be the absolute, and that is just not how it should be. That, I think, is a clear indication that you are living in self-deception - when nothing could prove you wrong. Step 1 of learning is humility, and the recognition that your knowledge is incomplete.

Most of what I'm saying, really, is that I wish I had access to some reality, some omniscient 3rd person perspective, where I could actually see if I am just like him. Because if I am, if I am that way to anyone at all, I would be devastated, and the task of loving and respecting other people would be entirely impossible.

I don’t want to be right anymore
I don’t want to be good
I don’t want to change your mind
to feel it like I do

I don’t want to fight
brother I’m not joking about peace
we can have it here tonight
it all comes down to you and me

and I’ve been learning a lot
about the violence I’m capable of

so I’m walking away from this
before I hurt someone
‘cause I’m facing enemies
on both sides of the gun

-Derek Webb