Why I Still Believe in Nuance (Even When the Internet Doesn’t)

Hot takes are easy. Humanity is harder.

---

Every morning I sit down with a cup of coffee, a pensive look, and some Ibuprofen. Then I try to make sense of a world that rarely makes sense back. Mugwump Ramblings is the section of this Substack where I sort through the noise, the nuance, and the nonsense — and try to find something human in the middle of it all.

Opening Scene: The Digital Performative Fight With IRL Consequences

There are days when logging onto the internet feels like stepping into a WWF ring, where everyone is armed with a clever and shady insult, tinged with cynicism and bad actors exploiting the pain current events cause. The algorithm(s) rewards certainty, outrage, and the kind of confidence that only comes from not thinking too hard. Meanwhile, the rest of us — the ones who see the world in shades of “it depends” — are left feeling like we showed up to a knife fight with a green bean casserole we knew we shouldn’t have made and no one really wants to eat.

It’s easy to feel a little out of place when drumming up outrage isn’t the goal.

Stubbornness, Trauma, and Time

Don’t get me wrong, I have strong opinions I will not compromise but I am getting better as I get older to slow down and remember that it’s ok to not buy into the rage and yet still show up at the No King’s rallies to protest the horrid person who is the present Commander in Chief. Maybe it’s stubbornness. Maybe it’s trauma. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve lived long enough to know that people are complicated, and so are the problems we create. But every time I’m told I must think X or must condemn Y or must pledge allegiance to Z, something in me rebels.

Even though I am :), nuance isn’t sexy. It doesn’t trend. It doesn’t get you retweets or followers or the dopamine hit of being on the “right” team. But nuance is where humanity lives. It’s where empathy (emotional and situational) grows. It’s where we stop treating each other like profile pics taken 7 years ago and start remembering that behind every opinion is a person who has bled, loved, lost, and learned.

And even if they are absolutely wrong they are human and capable of changin their mind.

And, I’ve been known to be incredibly wrong for a long time. If I can come out of a dark place and delusional thinking, others can too. People had no hope that I would come out of the dark closet of shame and into the light of my Truth. I don’t think we should ever write someone off; you never know where their journey will go. I am glad some of my friends didn’t write me off; picked me up when my world blew apart even though I was a symbol of some of their pain.

The Fence Isn’t Cowardice

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t trust anyone who says they do. But I do know this: the world doesn’t get better when we settle for intellectual fast-food instead of the feast of critical thinking. It gets better when we stay curious, humble, and willing to sit in the discomfort of complexity.

If that makes me a Mugwump, so be it. I’ll be over here on my fence — not because I’m afraid to choose, but because the view is clearer from up here.

---

If you want a more personal side of this journey, come back Friday for a regular Thrive post — where I write about the quieter work of becoming a person who can hold all this complexity without breaking.

---

---

More about Randy…