I have never been a fan of the league games. On the other hand, I have always enjoyed watching sports events where countries compete with one another. It’s very simple to align your loyalty with one player of our country. And the fact that the player won’t change the country is comforting in its own way. What’s not comforting is seeing your favourite athlete being traded like a commodity thrown around. A decision that the player barely has any control over. The conflict is – Do I enjoy the athlete’s skills or am I rooting for the athlete’s skill + loyalty to a team? In my mind, I was always gunning for the latter. And this is why I hated when someone I enjoyed following ended up in a conflicting situation. 

For eg – Elon Musk discarding corona virus. Zaheer Khan getting traded to different teams with in IPL. Naseem Taleb blocking people who disagree with him on Twitter.

I have come to a belief that no one person is likeable as a whole. It’s okay to agree with a person in one breath and disagree with the same person in another. The respect you have for an individual should not be a weighted average of your agreement and disagreements. In fact, it has nothing to do with that. Respecting individuals only helps in living a peaceful life. We don’t have to agree on all the things and we also don’t have disagree on everything. And the quantum of topics that we agree or disagree shouldn’t impact our ability to respect the other human being. 

The more you know about people you respect, adore, get inspired from, the more you will see their flaws. It’s exactly like peeling an onion. To err is to be a human. And that’s why, it’s okay to admire an individual for something they are good at and counter them or disagree with them on things where 

For eg – I don’t like a specific politician or TV media anchor. That should not mean that I don’t respect them. I just disagree with their opinions. I disagree with them strongly. I also adore their ability to being really strong orators which allows them to rally emotions. I don’t agree with them misusing their power. That’s it.

It’s okay to like and dislike the same person. It’s okay to love and hate the same individual. It’s okay to agree and disagree with the same person. It’s okay to appreciate and get disgusted by the same person. This will happen – if not today, tomorrow. There will be a conflict. And it’s okay to have conflicts. For some reason, we weren’t taught a lot about handling conflicts in school. Handling contradictory situations or dealing with individuals who contradict us. 

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