One thing I have discovered in my writing is how much of myself I tend to put into my protagonist. My thoughts, emotions, convictions, and the likes.  I imagine it's a good thing I have more difficulty writing my antagonist. Strangely, I have discovered a great change in my thinking as of late. Not a change in my basic core beliefs like my faith in God, which is the foundation of my entire life and drives who I am, or my belief that our country is great, as is its people, given the chance.

The change I speak of is that of immersing myself into relationships where I now listen and learn from people's different aspects on topics that would have been soundly rejected by me a few years ago. What has initiated this paradox? I'm not so sure, but I'm beginning to believe that the more I become comfortable with my own beliefs, the less threatened I feel by opposing views. I credit associating with people with diverse thinking as a major factor. Excluding my Worship, I don't limit myself to a circle of like-minded people for fear of becoming locked into a specific thought pattern. I fell into that for years and became stuck, so to speak, in a rut of ambiguity. I would rather be right all the time than be yielding.

Where is this going, you ask?  I wanted to share a discussion I had this week on Pay-Pals decision in not associating itself with royalty payments for books containing rape, incest or bestiality. It caused quite a discussion on my writers group. One person posted a blog that stated, "the  only people offended by this were the religious right." I responded with saying that along with the items being illegal, I felt it had no place in fiction if it's used gratuitously, and in a way that promotes, or justifies it. I explained it was quite evident the author of the blog had a clear, anti-Christian agenda, which was my main complaint I asked him if an image of Mohammad were the center of the controversy, he'd be praising Pay-Pal for not offending a major religious culture.

Of course one person accused me of wanting to ban books, which of course was intellectually bankrupt and used to deflect my view.  I reiterated my feelings about the author's clear animosity towards labeling Christians and that I did not believe in banning books. Evidently, he glazed over my points and hammered away on my being a book banner, thus I ended the discussion. He would not listen to another view.  As logical as my points had been, he was stuck in his rut of being right at the expense of reason and common sense.

Maybe I'm getting older, but I sorta  like the new me…:-) I look for, and, place above all in relationships, common sense, truth and celebrate different viewpoints with an open mind.

Be well.