The types of people I’d struggle to connect with.

“Empathy” and “tolerance” are treacherous concepts. By their very nature, they should be all-encompassing. If you claim to be empathetic and tolerant, you can’t make exceptions. Like God — he or she or it doesn’t make exceptions.

But humans are not Gods.

I’ve caught myself struggling with these concepts on many occasions. Call it cognitive dissonance.

So.

• The folks rationalizing Russia’s atrocities against Ukraine. But the West, but NATO, but Zelensky, but this and that. Fucking idiots. Sorry, not being very empathic here. Ok let me be more empathetic: delusional, lost souls. Rationalizing Putin and his regime is like denying Holocaust, or sympathizing with Hitler.
• Ultra-religious folks. I have close friends and relatives who are deeply faithful and their religions are very different. I have nothing but respect for them. But every now and then you come across someone posting something about Jesus in their every other post. Not my thing. Keep your faith to yourself.
• The folks who know no limits when it comes to expressing their political views publicly. Social media comes into play here too. Their every post, or every other post, or their comments to other posts are about degrading one party or candidate. This is a more difficult one — I’m not suggesting staying silent if you have strong views. I am not against strong political affiliations per se. But in a developed country you usually have half of…