Understanding Does Not Equate to Agreement.

If you’re someone capable of understanding multiple perspectives at once, chances are you’ve been accused of sympathizing with Wrong People™, engaging in Wrong Think™, and are therefore a Bad Person™.

If you’re someone who can hold opposing views in the same gaze, you’ve probably been told you have “toxic empathy,” “misplaced kindness,” and that you are “on the wrong side of history.”

If your brain allows you to connect dots explaining behaviors others seem baffled by, especially when such behaviors are deemed morally offensive or criminal, odds are people have mistaken your intelligence for enabling, your wisdom for weakness, and your compassion for endorsement.

They are wrong. Not you.

Don’t let other people’s quick assumptions, brash judgments, and lack of critical reasoning skills dampen your intellect, crush your compassion, or cause you to doubt your own integrity.

There is nothing wrong with a capacity to understand, comprehend, or make sense of why people do the things they do. Your gifts of insight do not mean you are a fool. Rather, you are beyond the confines of tribalism. The world needs people like you. Without us, there would be no criminal psychologists to help recognize and stop murder; no authors to write books like The Body Keeps the Score that help millions self-forgive and heal; no masterpieces of art like Les Misérables.

The ability to step into another’s shoes is not an approval of their actions or motives. It is a capacity for knowledge that makes other people uncomfortable. Their feeling threatened does not mean their resulting assumptions about you are true. They are on their own journey. Don’t let the limits of their brain cause you to deny yours. Don’t let their short-sighted presumptions inhibit your broad-minded curiosity. Don’t let their inabilities cause you to feel shame about being able-minded.

Your understanding is a gift. Not evidence of “wrong think.” When people try to tell you otherwise, invite them into curiosity if you have the energy for it; otherwise, don’t feel bad because of their ineptitude. It is not your burden to make the world a more understanding place. Yes, the misunderstanding hurts. Yes, the vilification provokes self-defense. Yes, it’s hard to be an eagle in a world of turkeys.

And yes…your understanding extends even to those who so willfully refuse to see you. That’s how smart you are and how big your heart is. You don’t need to act on it—in fact, a wise person once said not to cast your pearls before swine. The important thing is you know yourself, so that you can accept and love yourself, and keep gifting the world with your insight, grace, and brilliance as you so choose. It’s so much better than trying to be a narrow-minded, black-and-white someone you’re not.

I’m Alice Greczyn, a writer, among other things. This post is from the section of my Substack I’m calling “Unfiltered: The Alice Diaries.” Unlike the content on my main feed, which I take care to edit, fact-check, and link sources to, this section is for my stream of consciousness. It is a return to writing that I needed to do for me, shared in case it might offer something of value to you. Thanks for reading.