Like a good cup of coffee

Due to the fact that I am going to be getting up tomorrow morning at 5am to drive to the wonderful North Carolina to see friends and family I will not be writing as much as I would like to. Tonight I share about something that is my favorite thing in the world. After work tonight, I was sitting down in the office with a friend of mine, of whose identity I will protect, we will call him... Jacob for code. We ended up talking about all kinds of things, from rights, to privileges, health care, deficits, spending, economics, history, I mean it was a great conversation full of many different topics as you can tell. The best part about the whole thing was the exchange of ideas that took place, one idea to the next, tweaking, revising, questions and the respect of varying views. As we were walking out to ours cars to leave for the night, I paused to make one last comment, of which I admit is self gratifying... I told Jacob that these types of conversations are what gives me hope for America. The hope that people are having them and not afraid to talk to one another and exchange ideas. The hope that people have not either put themselves above talking about the world around them and the society and cultures they are a part of, or put themselves in a box where they only talk to those people who mirror what they do and have no variation outside of a set of views. We can't ignore the world and we can't ignore that there are all kinds of people waiting to have good constructive conversations. I think when Americans give up or are too stubborn to practice the art of two way conversation we have long since lost the idea of America. I bet right now you are wondering if the national anthem is playing in the background and the flag is slowly being lowered behind me as I type. Although, I admit that I might have leaned to the redundant side, I guess passion can be wordy sometimes, and I might lack a lot of things, but I tend to overflow with passion... for better or for worse.