Well I’m happier than a pig in shit that Obama won. How about you?

I have a quick thought for the arch-right white guys who are wondering what went wrong. Hardcore Christians, take a listen, too. If you think I’m stereotyping here, please know that the narrow-minded, judgmentalist, fear-mongering, entitled, deep-down-insecure-self-loathing white guy exists.

And this guy needs to learn the amazing power of “I don’t understand.”

This guy walks through life with the idea that everything he encounters needs to immediately be categorized into “good” or “bad”. Like, within the first few seconds of exposure to that new entity—whether it’s a person with lots of piercings, homeless people of a different color, two people of the same sex holding hands, somebody painting a painting in public (I once saw a couple of yuppie douchebags making fun of some guy watercoloring in the park, ripping this guy a new one to each other, as if he was the most evil being on this Earth. It was like we were once again in 1987 or something), a black President, actually: anybody who expresses an ounce of individualism in any way whatsoever—that person is preoccupied with defining it and placing that entity into some little box.

The “Good” Category? “You belong to our team, our world consists of teams.”

The “Bad” Category? “I only took a few seconds to discover that you were ‘bad’, but look the fuck out…”

Fellas: here’s a new option, “I don’t understand”.

That new thing you encounter? Take a deep breath, realize you don’t know everything about it yet, then say “I don’t understand.”

Try it for a month. Make it a conscious effort.

You go out into this wide world ours, just like every other day before. Only, when something new pops up in your path, something unfamiliar, you now have a new lens to peer through at this entity. It’s the I-don’t-understand lens.

That new thing, that hasn’t hurt you in any way shape or form, hasn’t posed any type of threat—it’s okay to not understand it. If you can’t quickly form a definitive opinion about a new force of energy, guess what?

That is perfectly okay.

So you have a positive outlook, a negative outlook, and now, an I-don’t-understand outlook. Go through life for a while. Try to not force something unfamiliar into one of those two all-too-convenient categories. Just see what happens.

Betcha ten bucks you’ll feel better. I Don’t Understand is a liberating categorization for something. So many things that would before fall into the “bad” category simply because one didn’t have enough information now have a much less threatening category. The “I Don’t Understand” category. This category makes entities like fear unnecessary in your life.

Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump, Koch Bruthaz: give “I don’t understand” a try. Just for a while.

You’ll quit living in fear.

You’ll be happier.