It All Starts With Modesty.

I have to admit I feel self-conscious about taking a selfie on my own. It costs me enormous effort to share social media with a wave of new narcissistic generations: creatures born behind a selfie, for whom it's easier to record a video of themselves than write a story about other people. The modern inquisition is the one you impose on yourself. Whether because one seeks to please an enraged mass of the offended, or because one seeks to satisfy an all-powerful ego. We live in an age of freedom in which even those who hate can make use of it.

Those who sell freedom in exchange for hatred of what's different only do business with emotions. Those who promote progress as an exaltation of differences also profit from emotions. It's uncomfortable to coexist with what's different, and it all comes down to education in how to share.

Coexistence is built on the solid foundation of acceptance and compassion. Acceptance of what's different, and a shared passion for the process of normalizing the loss of hegemony over a space that will never again be enjoyed in the solitude of your own people. Coexisting is learning to share without prior rights or pre-existing privileges. And it isn't easy. And in the trust that together we go further lies the secret of coexistence.

The stages of change are so difficult because rarely do the newcomers invite, from the depths of their heart, a celebration and respect for the work of those who came before them. They always offer dialectical handouts to their mob of followers: birdseed for the masses. Rarely is there a call for calm or humility, much less for universal love, and almost never a timid ode to accepting the other as a legitimate other.

Bowing out with elegance or landing with humility belongs to a breed of leaders that has long been scarce. If we set aside our affinities and enshrined the conversation in a basic set of shared agreements or minimums, coexistence would be much simpler. A list of minimums that, as in the case of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), was already enshrined decades ago. And yet, today it's almost impossible to reconcile differences because of the continuous poisoning we've been subjected to by social networks, tyrannical algorithms, the filter bubble, and the stale echo that resounds in the closed room of our own ideology.

It would be enough to start coexisting, even if only in the mental realm. It would be enough to tell ourselves, every time we feel rage at someone else's opinion: "I still disagree. And give me time to take it in."

"I still disagree. And give me time to take it in."

In a conversation there should never be winners or losers. That belongs to games and competition. We've stopped playing, but we haven't stopped competing. We've stopped talking, but we haven't stopped arguing.

Accepting difference begins with the internal minimum of celebrating the wise man's adage. And from knowing that I know nothing, everything is left to learn. Even from the one who's different.

Trusting the hidden richness in difference is an exercise in tolerance. When we grow inward in tolerance for what's different, then, and only then, will we be ready to converse outward. There's still a lot of work to do inward before we come of age to show ourselves outward. And yes, this is about modesty. We need to recover dialectical modesty before we're ready to coexist. And you may disagree. And give yourself time to take it in.

A window onto the world was opened for us, one from which anyone could look out and speak and even rant. And perhaps it's time to recover modesty even before daring to raise our voice. The conversation never belonged to those who spoke the loudest, but to those who listened in the most silence. Even in listening, some claim, lies the most active part of language. It's time to recover the courage to listen and the modesty to hold back from shouting.

And give me time to take it in.