Day 549

Two day update.

Wednesday:

Kimmy had to work in the morning, so I did some cleaning and packing.  Then after she got back we finished packing and set off to Butler, OH.  The Pagano family met there for Thanksgiving.

The drive was pretty uneventful, which is good.  Um...yeah, I don't remember too much about the actual trip.  When we got there we had dinner with mom, dad, Aunt Shasta and Aunt Terri.  Then after dinner we went outside to make a fire!  It was kinda tricky since the wood was damp, but we made it happen.

After the fire we played a game of Farkle, then went to bed.

Thursday:

Thanksgiving!  It was fun.  I got to sleep in, then help get stuff done after I got up.  Everyone else started arriving around 11.  Oh!  I got to help move some more furniture.  It was so much fun.  We ate at.... about 1, I think.  The food was awesome, obviously.  After we finished eating we all just sat around and talked and meandered aimlessly about. Usually at Thanksgiving I eat and talk with Nick and Colton, so we continued the tradition.  Later on we sat with Harley and Justice for a while and talked about life and things.  I enjoy catching up with everyone.

Kimmy and I left around 6 because Kimmy had to work at 4 this morning.  Ew.  So she slept most of the way home.  

I also came to a realization while driving home: I don't really like discussing how people feel about certain topics.  I absolutely love talking about how people think about different topics, but not how they feel.  See, when people think long and hard about something (just as an example we'll use the recent legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington) it means that your opinion is generally based on some amount of logical thought, research, and possibly discussion.  The key here is discussion.    When you think about something, you are willing to carrying on a dialogue with other people and cultivate your beliefs.  So in our example, suppose you initially agree with the legalization, but after some discussion and research you come to doubt your original beliefs.  Progress has been made because you are willing to discuss and change your opinion based on new information.  But when someone just feels a certain way about a topic, that person is rarely interested in actually discussing that thing.  The real interest is just in telling you what his/her opinion is... not in coming to a new resolution.  I have this issue (generally) when discussing religion and politics.  People feel very strongly in those areas, but it is rare that people think strongly in those areas.  Not to suggest that people are stupid when they have religious or political opinions, but people rarely want a fair, two-sided discussion.  Most people that I have talked to about religion or politics simply want a chance to filibuster their ideas and (presumably) change your mind.  But if everyone just feels about things... no one will change their mind.  If everyone thought about things, not only would we have true dialogue, but we would all be willing to change our opinions.  And this is a good thing.  Changing your opinion is a fantastic, wonderful thing that happens when you admit that you don't know everything, but you wish to learn more.  It's a very difficult transition to go from having a hard, fast belief to just... letting go, accepting that everyone has some good (and bad ideas) that we should listen to, and that maybe our ideas aren't so good and need reformation.

Anyhow, that's just my thought of the day.  Now I'm going to go brave the Black Friday traffic.  My keyboard is dying, so I need to go get a new one.  Cheers!