Big Hate=Short Life

I read an article today.

It was entitled "Study: Homophobic  Lives are 2.5 Years Shorter". (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/study-homophobic-lives-are-25-years-shorter/283955/), 

This specific article was in The Atlantic but a quick scroll through Google showed that the article had been picked up by countless other on-line news and opinion sites.

The study had been conducted by Columbia University and the University of Nebraska, and had been published in the American Journal of Public Health.  So it wasn't some quack study.  The researchers did their best to isolate the connection between homophobia and life expectancy, as a measure of stress.

In a nutshell, here is what they found out:


homophobia=hate

hate=stress

stress=chronic stress

chronic stress=physical stress

physical stress=earlier death.


Was this study perfect?  Of course not.  I've listened plenty of times to Bob's critiques of studies printed in journals, in newspapers.  Studies cited by politicians and people with agendas.  And I've learned that even the very best studies have flaws, although conducted by the most respected and intelligent people in their  chosen fields.

  The studies have flaws, even small ones, because people are flawed.  Because there is always room for improvement, further study, a closer look.

However even with this study not being perfect, the conclusions ring true...at least for me.

Because hate in any form just isn't healthy.

I'm not only talking about the effects of hate--the terrible things done to innocent people in the name of whatever greater power people cite, whether it be personal, spiritual, political, familial, quasi-scientific or cultural.

Hate isn't healthy for the hater.

Do something for me.

Imagine something you really dislike--like a food or a movie or a slimy weird animal that you just can't stand.

Maybe find a picture of it, or if it is a food, take a small taste, just to refresh your memory.
Really get into your dislike.  Describe it to yourself in great detail...textures, colors, smells.  If it is an animal or a movie you dislike, do the same--really get into the themes, images that you find most disturbing.

Now, how do you feel?

That tightness in your chest?  Your clenched teeth, squinting eyes?  That shudder of "yuck" running down your spine? Those retching noises you might be making?

Stress.  Tiny stress. Disposable stress that you can easily dismiss,  but stress nevertheless.

And this is stress caused by things.  By a food, or a fictional movie or an animal you may never see or encounter  in your lifetime.

But the stress of hating people....so much greater.  Because things cannot help but being things, right?  I mean, mayonnaise doesn't have the option of turning into ketchup just to make you feel better.   A tarantula can't just decide one day to become a hamster just because you prefer your furry creatures to have 4 legs instead of 8.

We accept that things (including non-human animals) are pretty much unchangeable.  They are what they are and we accept that, even if we don't particularly enjoy them.

So why, I have always always wondered, don't we give the same acceptance to our fellow humans?

I'm not talking about the change of growth, learning and maturity.   These kinds of change are a vital part of what makes us human--the ability to learn, to renew ourselves.  To reinvent ourselves as we want to be, or need to be.  To invent new technologies and ideas, stories and creations.

I'm talking about accepting that which we humans cannot change.  

Our skin.
Our ethnicity.  Our race.
Our past.
When, where and how we were born and grew up.
Who we love.

Accept.

I'm not asking everyone to join in a great big world group hug.  That's an unrealistic goal, even for someone as idealistic as me.

But I do ask for acceptance.
Mutual respect.
The absence of emotional, verbal, physical violence.
Raising our laws and political systems to the standards of equality that everyone deserves.

And you know what?
Acceptance does not equal hate.

I don't have to be you.  You don't have to be me.
But we can be we, living together on this earth.
Accepting each other.  Even supporting each other's right to be here.

Give it a try.

You might even find your grudging acceptance gradually turning into something better and stronger....
maybe admiration, respect, like, love.

And those, my friend, are feelings that can only add years to your life.

Until next time.

Everything is a book

Today's realization:

Everything is a book.

Okay, maybe not literally.  Conventional books are made of paper and ink and thread and glue.  Ebooks are made of electronic bits and bytes.  And clearly not everything is made up of paper, ink, thread, glue, bits or bytes.

But figuratively, in the land of symbolism and imagination, yeah, everything is a book.

And what is a book?

It's a container.

A container in which  we store ideas and innovation, history and change.  We use words to look forward and backward and to stare, rather confused, at the present.

Great.  So books are containers.

So is a really great burrito.  A burrito is a container for culture, for flavor, for sustenance, for comfort and sometimes for companionship, if enjoyed with others.

Like a book.

So is a cat.  A cat is a container for its physical bits, for the scientific stuff that makes up a cat.  But a cat is also a container for poetic inspiration, for the evolutionary history of its species.  A container for affection and tactile enjoyment and comfort.

Like a book.

So are people.

 I realized that everything was a book just today.

My nephew posted an old photo of himself on Facebook, from when he was in his late teens, maybe early twenties.

I was flipping through some of the old photos he had posted, of long gone pets and such, and came upon this particular photograph.

At first glance I thought it was my 17 year old son.

And I realized that people are books.

I saw that picture of my nephew, and the pages flipped forward to the pages of my son's face.  I flipped the pages back further, towards the beginning, back to my nephew's face, to his mother's and father's faces.   The words and sentences may have  changed as the pages were flipped, but the tale those pages told carried through.  A quirk of an eyebrow, the angle of a jaw.  All of it written there for the reading.

Like words.  Related, connected, each built upon he words before them.

The beautiful thing about words and  books, is that  there are no boundaries about how they can be combined.   Each new combination creates a marvelous new story.

Just like people.

And as with  people, there are always those who try to tell us what books to read and not read.  Those who  hold their black markers over the words, censoring ideas with which they disagree.  Those who strike the match to burn the piles of books they deem  dangerous.

And yet there are always some books that escape the censoring pen and the flames.

Why?

Because all stories deserve to be told.  All books deserve to exist.

Someday the books called "humans" might actually realize this.

Until next time.