It's become a "thing" to declare that we are allowed to our own opinions but not to our own facts.

I disagree. Numbers are easily manipulated to prove our own point. 

Good news! Last year, Trea Turner led the National League in hitting! 

    And made outs 70% of the time!

Good news! Tariff income raised about a quarter of a trillion dollars last year!

    Which accounts for just a fraction of the federal government's total revenue.

This was a fun article to read about a fellow who set out to walk around the world. 

One thing on particular stood out to me as a shared experience from my 1982 cross-country bike trip:

Bushby said he has learned a lot over the past nearly three decades, but one thing stands out: “99.99 percent of the people I’ve met have been the very best in humanity,” he said. “The world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems.”

Bushby said that anytime he was ill or down on his luck, a stranger would swoop in and help — either with shelter, a meal, financial support or guidance.

I found this interview with Kristen Stewart in the NY Times to be fascinating for two reasons. 

First was this question and answer:

At some point, you became a character in the tabloids, and I was curious about what you learned from seeing this character, Kristen Stewart, out in the world and you know it’s not you. 

But sometimes it is.

I said that like I know you. I don’t know you. Maybe it was you. 

You do know me now, and that belongs to you. You can think anything about me that you want. If I’ve ever been frustrated, it’s because they get the wrong information, or you go, That’s not who I think I am. But who you think you are has nothing to do with what other people think you are, and no one’s wrong.

And then- also this exchange from that interview:

You know, last night I was reading a book [“The Life You Want”] by this brilliant psychoanalyst and writer named Adam Phillips. In it, he quotes a French philosopher who said that the only modern question is “What is it you don’t want to know about yourself?” What’s your answer to that?

I want to know everything about myself, but I'm not sure I want everyone else's opinion on that. And I don't want to obsess over it.

For me, at this point, I don't think there is anything else I Do want to know about me. 

But I'm not sure why that would be the only "modern question" or even what makes it modern.

I used to think I was cute to say that I am tolerant of anything except intolerance. But I've come to realize I have it exactly backwards.

I also need to tolerate intolerance. 

People are entitled to their own opinions including ones I find abhorrent. And their freedom to express those opinions should, in most cases, not be abridged. 

It's even tempting to say they should be ignored, but that would be, well, ignorant, in the current common usage of the word.

It shouldn't be a crime to say or think...anything, just as it shouldn't be a crime to fantasize about anything. But one also has to be willing to accept the legally agreed to consequences when one says what they think, especially if they are in a position of power.

I'm curious about our levels of self-confidence and what the biggest factors have been in getting us to those levels, high or low.

Were we born this way? Did we work to get it as high as it is? Or beat ourselves up to get it as low as it is? Or did it come from either hearing wonderful or awful things about ourselves?

And of course, the correct answer is that it is all those things, not equally. 

Accepting the challenge of assigning a level, I would say I've worked myself to a level of about 8 out of 10 (from my lowest level in college of maybe a 3), not because I think I'm so wonderful, but because I know enough about myself, or think I do, to know I'm not a bad person so if...no, when...someone has negative things to say about me, I am able to absorb them, reflect on them and sometimes even just ignore them without feeling defensive.

But I allow myself to revel in anything positive anyone has to say about me. It feels like they are giving me a gift it would be impolite not to accept and so I do with gratitude. 

I've been wanting to post this for a while. Mike (Rellahan) wrote this and I just really liked it:

After describing the “there’s no crying in baseball” scene from A League of Their Own, he writes:

“There is however crying in the courtroom.

If you spend enough time visiting courtrooms when criminal cases are being heard, you will see a lot of crying people. There are crying defendants, crying victims, crying parents and siblings of defendants and victims. They cry tears of grief, tears of fear, tears of rage, and tears designed to win a favorable outcome in their case. There is a reason that every courtroom in the Chester County Justice Center comes equipped with a tipstaff and a box of tissues. People will cry, and someone needs to hand them the Kleenex.

I once saw a woman, who was called to testify in a trial against the man who attacked her at her home on her birthday in her bedroom, walk into Courtroom 7 in the Historic Courthouse already in full sob. She cried taking the witness stand, cried taking the oath, cried during her direct testimony, cried during cross-examination, and cried as she left the room. The only time I didn’t see her cry in the courtroom was when her attacker was sent to state prison for his crime. But she wasn’t smiling, either.

You never get used to the crying, because so much of it comes from the heart. But you come to expect it and accept it for what it is.”

Something to reflect on

This column in the NY Times focuses on a young celebrity photographer and friend of Timothee Chalamet and Charli XCX and Billie Eilish (Did I even spell one of those names right?) and I love this line of his:

“You’re always looking for a reflection of yourself in the eyes of other people.” - Aidan Zamiri.