Listening to someone is not the same as agreeing with them
✌️ Be safe this weekend
Issue #243: literary rejections, good storytelling, and unconscious envy
I’m guessing some of you saw this, but: Yesterday, at former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, Barack Obama was seated next to Donald Trump. They were in the second row, behind Kamala Harris and surrounded by all 5 living U.S. presidents.
The history of animosity between these two goes back three election cycles, and it’s not pretty. In 2012, Trump tweeted that Obama’s birth certificate was fraudulent (it’s not). While campaigning in 2016, he referred to Obama as “ignorant,” “a disaster,” and the “founder of ISIS.” And recently, Obama finished a campaign tour for Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy in which he argued that Trump’s approach to politics is divisive and would be “dangerous” for the U.S. It’s not an exaggeration to say their political careers have been partially built on tearing each other down, or at least positioning themselves as the better alternative.
Yet, they seemed to get along fine yesterday. Maybe even more than fine. Trump told a joke (?) and Obama laughed. Obama whispered something back to him later in the ceremony.
This made news. It surprised people. Some read the moment as hypocritical or sinister in some way, evidence that America’s leaders are unprincipled. That’s one take. A more positive perspective is that basic humanity transcends politics, which is actually pretty refreshing (to me, at least) right now, when everything from raging wildfires to private companies’ content moderation policies are immediately politicized to score Internet Points. Yes, it’s normal to be cordial toward your seatmate at a funeral. This shouldn’t be controversial? Funerals are reminders that, no matter who you’re dunking on today, no matter what power or money you’ve won or lost, our time here is short and most of this will be forgotten.
(Small caveat to note the event was not grudge-less! Karen Pence and George W. Bush apparently both refused to shake Donald Trump’s hand, though Bush did give Obama an amusing belly tap at one point.)
“Remember there’s a time and place” to disagree, wrote Saul Austerlitz on Medium a few years ago, in a story about how to talk to someone who’s opinions you can’t stand. Listening, even laughing with someone, is not the same as agreeing with them. Maybe that’s a useful distinction to take with us into the weekend.
What else we’re reading
- The only way to get better is to fail first — which, in YA author Dr. Casey Lawrence’s case, means facing 100 literary rejections last year (and celebrating them).
- The defining elements of great novels — specificity, conflict, characters — are the same ones that uplevel any type of communication, from company presentations to emails to strategy docs. Get yourself a hero and something they believe in, even if it’s just for your company all-hands. (Amy Widdowson, Medium’s VP of Comms)
- Gaming historian Felipe Pepe traces the gentrification of video game history, and how not everyone grew up with N64 and Pokemon. It’s less about the erasure of individual games than ways of playing (and interacting with people) — like gaming in public at internet cafes as an alternative to exclusively playing at home.
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Sometimes, irritation is a form of unconscious envy. (J Snyder Art)
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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis
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