Emotions can be messy, but can make our world better

I have argued that the concepts of love and hate have been reduced to mathematical equations to avoid having to deal with messy human emotions. This makes public decision making clean and neat because it eliminates having to talk about the real pain and suffering that too often emanates from those choices.

This decision-making process impacts our personal and public lives. It is how budgets are made, certainly. But it also affects real people with real needs.

We do not see desperate people at our borders seeking help. Our cold computations see people who will do anything in their power to take what we have.

We do not see people of color as individuals. We see them as angry mobs demanding a piece of our pie.

We do not see homeless people on our streets as a cry for help. Our calculations tell us that our property is devalued by their presence.

We do not see LGBTQ+ as people in need of love and understanding. Our machinations see them as a danger to our society’s norms and a drain on our budgets.

I could go on, but I think you get my drift. Every decision we make in public life affects real human beings.

Making judgements via black and white calculations drives us to predict the possible thunderclouds and storms. That is a valid and valuable practice, to be sure. But doing so also blocks us from seeing the sunshine and rainbows we could be creating.

We were all born human beings with the power of love and acceptance in our very existence. Watching an infant respond to nurturers responsible for their care teaches us this basic truth.

The nurturer can choose to be an instrument of good or evil. We all have the capacity for either. How we respond to the infants’ need will often dictate the infants’ future response to those around them.

Our life encounters from infancy on have too often wounded us in ways that contribute to the harmful things we do to the people and world around us. We have also been loved and that love teaches us how to love others.

We can take responsibility for how we respond and react to the world by addressing the root causes of our distrust of others just as we can model the love we have received. Our harmful mindsets and actions are almost certainly rooted in our fears that we could be like ‘them’ in another world. Or our mindsets could embrace ‘them’ and make room for them in our lives.

I am not perfect and never will be. I am making a determined effort to liberate myself from the effects of the harms of my past; both those wounds inflicted on me and those I have exacted.

It is difficult in this culture of extreme individualism to seek help. I must remind myself that I am but a small part of a larger community of humans and that we all stumble even on the best of days. I offer acceptance, patience, and compassion to myself just as I try to offer those attributes to those around me. Self-love, however, is at times even more difficult than loving others.

Just as I need to seek help at times, I try to offer aid when confronted with other’s needs. We are, after all, in the same mess. Because of that truth, we must be ready and willing to offer compassion and acceptance, and sometimes cash, to others. Their challenges and struggles are ours.

Unfortunately, it seems that many of our brothers and sisters are not striving to be the best human being they can be. They look to be attempting to exclude others from the hope, health, and happiness they enjoy while lining their pockets with the money that could be used to help others.

This is not about saving money to pay some earlier debt. That is shown by the fact that every time we reduce spending and taxes the national debt rises. This is about denying others opportunity because they are different.

Emotions are messy, but they can be helpful in making our world a better place.

Love freely dear reader. This is the only world we have.

This is the opinion of Times Writers Group member Ben Ament, world citizen. He hopes to leave that world slightly better than he found it. His column is published the fourth Sunday of the month.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Emotions can be messy, but can make our world better