INTOLERANT OF INTOLERANCE

Intolerance took a new meaning for me yesterday. One tiny mistake while driving back my mother who had paid a short visit to our home wanting to meet her grandchildren after a long time, taught me a lesson I will never forget.

It will keep me awake at nights for that's how I am made. I realised a long time ago that my manufacturer had sent me out in this world with a number of defects. My loved ones and I of course have been bearing the brunt of my many faceted flaws.

The roads in our area are not too busy what with most people choosing wisely to stay at home. But then there are some who do venture out due to various reasons. So well here I was enjoying the feel of the steering wheel in my hands, gabbing away with my mom, loving being on the road after so many weeks when I saw three cars bearing down on me from the opposite direction.

With no traffic signals in our locality, I misjudged and instead of coming to a stop, made my turn sooner than I should have blocking the road of one of the cars out of the three. I stopped he stopped—no harm no foul—just a small mistake putting no one in any danger.

I looked at him unsure of what to do next when I saw the well-to-do looking man with his pretty wife, I assume, sitting next to him clapping, mouthing what I can only imagine to be abuses.

I couldn't hear his words but I could clearly see his full palm claps as his eyes bored into mine, mocking me, scoffing at my 'rule breaking'.

I reacted immediately unable to tolerate his derisive, scornful and ugly, yes very ugly claps...I clapped too mimicking his intolerant behaviour.

I admit I had made a mistake but did it warrant this ugliness, this intolerance. It didn't stop there. As I was driving away, the man didn't let it go as he continued to clap and mouth words I still couldn't hear, his wife staring at me, her eyes popping out, looking down her lofty nose at me.

How could I have reacted, responded in such a shrewish manner? How uncivilised of me? What an Ill bred woman I was? Their body language and their eyes said it all.

But what they forgot was they had been unkind to me too. Without assigning blame on who started it I take full responsibility for reacting to the ugliness with intolerance. Clearly at that moment I was no different than them.

And even though an eye for an eye was not my objective I had fallen into a trap humanity has had to struggle with since apes evolved into humans—retribution and intolerance.

It seems simple, yet tolerance is hard, even though the opposite of it can bring about destruction, mayhem, emotional distress, societal upheaval.

And still intolerance besieges us as individuals and societies every single day. Wherever we are wherever we go, it follows us. 

How can man coexist peacefully, how can we hope for a fair and just society where we can live safely without our values and beliefs being questioned, how can we be free independent thinkers and how can live without fear and ignorance?

It isn’t easy to be a tolerant person. Each of us fights against what we believe to be anti everything we believe in. We refuse to give in to the opinions and beliefs of others. 

But if these very values and principles have the potential to harm or effect others we need to rethink and reevaluate them. 

On the flip side is another question which brings me to my point. 

Should I have tolerated the intolerance? Have I not been taught to respect individual autonomy—the idea that people’s minds and lives can be different from our own. We may disagree with their views, practices and beliefs, but we tolerate them, just as we want others to tolerate our own opinions and beliefs.

In this case where no one was harmed except my fragile ego, I could have let it go, not reacting, tolerating his intolerance. 

But when I go about my merry way tolerating every kind of intolerance in society is when I need to reassess my beliefs and opinions. 

Intolerance surrounds us and we choose to keep our eyes closed to it as long as it doesn't interfere with our life. 

Is engaging with the intolerant among us the answer? Will it solve all our problems? Spiteful comments on social media, hate speech, violence—like many others I do not engage with the intolerant—I choose to ignore them. I tolerate the intolerance. 

But do I actively promote tolerance? I don't know. 

Till I introspect and reevaluate my inner self to find the answer, what I will do is work on my tolerance and be kinder, more accepting, generous, compassionate and more sympathetic.