The people who shout loudest often do it with great certainty. The world view is already sewn. It only needs to be pushed into place. Then there is little room for wonder, little will to see nuance, and even less will to admit that one's own argument might not hold. When the arguments run out, it is easier to attack than to talk.
At the same time, many people sit quietly with thoughts that go deep. They have a basic sense of what it is to be a person, and they do not write in the comment field, and they do not end up in the headlines. Not because they have nothing to say. Maybe because shouting does not come naturally. Maybe because they know what it is worth to listen, look and understand before they speak.
I think many of these people have a calmer relationship to being here, with themselves and with others. They can bear that life is composite, without putting everyone in a box. They do not need to win the discussion. They have an inner compass that is quieter, almost stoic, and therefore less visible.
What happens when a society moves in a direction where there is no room for that calmer view of people? When we have to label someone in order to understand them, and the systems we built cannot hold the width of human experience?
We talk a lot about diagnoses, without asking who decided what is normal. Is something wrong with these people, or is it the system that cannot hold the variation in human nature? Have we become so afraid of what is different that we would rather call it a fault than try to understand it?
I think the people who carry an inner calm, who meet ups and downs with the same steady look, could have an important role in public. Not to take up space the way the loud ones do, but as a counterweight. A reminder that there is more than one way to be a person. That strength is not volume. It is insight and balance.
Then these people, the ones who would rather not shout, may have to stand up and say something. Against their own will, against their own nature. Not to argue, but to weigh the other side. To show that the world can be understood in other ways than through the extremes.
And I have to ask myself: am I the one who is wrong? Are my thoughts just another ideology, wrapped in philosophy?
Maybe. If so, it is at least an attempt to see the person before the system. To make room for what sits in between. For balance, for variety, and for silence as a kind of courage.