Electric Charge

More than once I have heard a bird clunk into a window.  Sometimes it is the end of the story for that bird.  Other times it is just a shaking of the head and moving on to do something else. Those birds sincerely believed they were heading for more open space.  They were sincerely wrong.
I do not remember what I was doing, but one-time birds were flying about having a good time.  For one of them the good time ended.  He collided with another bird and despite his best efforts could no longer fly.  It gave me no pleasure but I had to deal with that bird or else he was going to be food for something, and experience it firsthand.  Those birds sincerely believed they could do what they liked with impunity.  One experienced such a “I didn’t see that coming” moment.
I can be totally sincere.  I may be dinky di, dyed in the wool, fairdinkum, a good bloke.  But being sincere does not make me right.  I may sincerely believe 2+2 =5.  My sincerity does not make 2+2=5.  Never has, never will.
Naturally if someone was to base their acceptance of me or otherwise on my believing 2+2=5 I would probably be destined never to be accepted.  To me though, that is a dangerous thing to do.  From what I have seen, none of us get it 100% right 100% of the time.  Man or animal.
I am in even more trouble though if I am unwilling to listen to any alternative to my belief.  As Dylan sang “oh you know some folk they just never learn.”  I have two ears and one mouth.  I think I am better off listening.  Not listening to speak, but listening to hear.  We all have stuff to learn if we have ears to hear.
If someone in power sincerely believes something that is wrong I am in even more trouble again.  It can be my head on the chopping block, and there is nothing I can do about it.
I was thinking of us like a magnetic charge.   I thought I had better verify what I was thinking so I looked up “magnetic charge.”  The first definition I came across was “A theoretical property of matter manifesting magnetic phenomena, analogous to electric charge, arising from magnetic monopoles.”  For some that would be a “of course” or “didn’t you know that?” moment.  For me it was a “huh?” or “what you talkin about Willis?” moment.
The definition I found of electric charge was more what I was thinking, though it put it in a better way than I ever could have.  “Two objects that have excess opposite charges, one positively charged and the other negatively charged, attract each other when relatively near.”
That is the way I see us.  We need each other.  It is not necessarily up to me to define if I am a positive or negative, but the important thing is we attract.  Two positives or two negatives push each other away.  It is probably where the old gun fighter “this town ain’t big enough for the two of us” thing came from.  In that situation two positives is one too many.
When I am open, there can be an attraction.  When I am closed, I will always push away.