As I’ve been building this web site, I’ve been looking for inspirational quotes that express what I really want to convey. I can write things in my own words, but I find comfort and inspiration in reading or hearing the words of other people. And I presume that I am not unique, in that way. If I experience something, I am certain that there are others who can experience it, too. So, I like to share that comfort and inspiration I find in other peoples words.
So, I was looking for quotes. For my web site and for myself. I came across lots of lists and started reading through them. As I was reading I found myself drawn to one particular person’s quotes. I copied and pasted eight quotes to my ongoing list, and four of them were from the same author. I thought, “Well, if I am enjoying these quotes so much, maybe I should read more of this person’s works. Get a deeper, more detailed experience of the heart behind these words.”
Imagine my surprise when I looked up the authors works to find out that he is an outspoken proponent of a political and social position that I am horrified by and disagree with, on gut level. I had a moment of seriously doubting my sanity. I had to go back to the quotes and read them again. Had I missed something in the excerpts that might have clued me in to the beliefs behind them? Had I read more into them that was actually there? Nope. They were just as inspirational and comforting as they had been when I copied them.
Then I had to make a more rational assessment of whether I wanted to share the inspiration and comfort with others, or link my own thoughts and feelings to those of the person who spoke those words. Or, worse, become a defacto advertiser for the other ideas this person has. Hmmm. And I had to decide if I could, ethically, link my website and, by extension my coaching practice, to an individual or a movement that makes my skin crawl.
In the end, I decided that I do not want to have any links with that person. So all the quotes I’ve chosen to publish come from people whom I admire, or at least whose publicly espoused beliefs don’t clash so dramatically with my own. But I wonder if I’m being hypocritical, or overly stringent. I think it’s going to occupy at least some of my thoughts for a good long while. What do you think? Can we take comfort and inspiration from sources that feel so wrong? Or is the comfort or inspiration delusional? I think it’s worth pondering.