There are two kinds of intolerance.
One builds walls. One builds clarity.
They can feel identical from the inside โ the same refusal, the same turning away โ but they come from completely different places and they leave you in completely different states.
I know a man who speaks from a position that has never once moved. Not an inch.
And I used to fight it. Believe that if I just explained it clearly enough the door would open.
It never did.
Now I take a breath. I let him speak. I go about my day.
Not because I stopped caring. But because I finally understood that some people aren't waiting to be understood. They're waiting to be agreed with. And those are completely different things.
Hardness would be contempt. Discernment is the breath.
But here's the part that took longer โ the willingness to ask myself which positions I hold not because they're true but because examining them would cost me something.
Healing intolerance is patient with what doesn't align. It releases without resentment. It sees clearly without cruelty.
Hardness just stops feeling. And calls it peace.
โฆ
The difference isn't what you refuse. It's what you do with the refusal โ whether you carry it as bitterness or set it down as clarity.
โ original poem | @reviveyourroar
Save this if you know the difference from the inside. ๐ค