always be comfortable with what other people say.
When you choose not to be tolerant and respond to hate with hate all you do is empower the view you're at odds with. The Westboro Baptist Church would have never garnered any media attention if it wasn't for the public outrage they inspire. You see they actually love being hated. It drives them forward. It's the hate that tells them they're doing the right thing. It's the fuel which straps their beliefs to a rocket and carves them into the stars, eternal, unchanging and immovable. Intolerance may be obvious when it's displayed on colorful signs and standing beside busy roadways, but it's far more prevalent online.
The web is a great medium for expressing one's beliefs, but sometimes we search for things to be upset about which otherwise wouldn't exist. It's become common to find issues, raise objections, and voice complaints where they otherwise wouldn't exist. There are many people who take enormous offense to statements tuned to different key than their own. Anyone who's used Facebook has probably been privileged to vehement, and oftentimes aggressive, rants. There are never any winners, except for those of use entertained by trivial pursuits. People are passionate about their beliefs, but their passion can blind them like a new day's sun through an open window.
So you logon to Tumblr, Facebook, or any of another two dozen social forums and maybe you see someone saying something a little "off-color," offensive or intolerant. Maybe, it hurts you to see someone actually saying something so heinous. You suffer by reading the words someone took the time out of their day to write. Well, suffering is good. Suffering is natural. Suffering is intrinsically nutritious like a vitamin for the soul. It helps you grow into a well-rounded, functioning person. If you go out of your way to insulate yourself by only associating with people who espouse the same views as you, not only will you fail but you'll hurt your development as a person. Surrounding yourself in the warm blanket of familiar opinions cannot save you from others opinions. You begin to drown in a category of ideas.
When you start placing yourself in a category you've defeated the idea of equality. The United States Government is at a standstill because partisan politics inhibits the entertainment of ideas different from your parties. When you decide to align yourself with any categorical ideology you close off a part of the world. You say, "anything that doesn't conform to what other people who think like me say is incorrect." You willingly forfeit an open mind. Even The Buddha said, "believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." Instead of struggling with what's right or wrong by testing yourself, you submit to the authority of a group perspective. Not only do you deny yourself the right to reason but you deny your right to be a fully fledge human-being.
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