It was an 8AM breakfast last Thursday that lead me to this. Maybe it was the effort it took to make the meeting or maybe it was the snowstorm that raged outside or maybe it was merely the fact we had nothing else to do...no pressure to leave.

My friend, whom I love and respect, voted for Trump. I voted for Clinton and we started to talk politics. Now let me digress a bit. Three weeks ago I posted a blog expressing my feelings about the inauguration of our new President. Once I published it I received a very emotional, hurtful email from a different individual. That person who read the blog took it personally and lashed out at me.

Once I let my anger subside a bit, stripped away the insults and vicious language, I begrudingly agreed that a political blog on Gotham is inappropriate and took it down. This leads me to breakfast...

My friend expressed his frustration that he could not talk about his views...he has to remain quiet or be verbally and mailicously accosted. Having a political discussion these days can be dangerous and most people avoid it. But, our meeting naturally, cautiously evolved to an empassionate and funny conversation. Both of us expressing ourselves, clearly, with information we had, with no malice or nasty language. We found we agreed on several points and disagreed on others.

The point I'm getting to is that at the end of our meal, he looked at me and said "This was the best breakfast ever!" He had a bounce in his step when he left. Although he and I felt each other was wrong on several issues, we did not lash out, call each other names or think less of each other.

In a conference call yesterday with Tribal Council, I recounted my story. Nancy said this could be the start of having heroic conversations, in Gotham, discussing the white elephant in the room without seeking to hurt or damage the other person just because they think differently.

Gotham can be the vehicle that represents civility, pure discussion of issues without the vitreol or divisivness that pervades our society right now. It's not easy...each of us faces an uphill battle fraught with emotion. Externally we are bombarded with social media that constantly sends us what we like, media that needs eyeballs so they dramatize everything and politicians that use fear to get what they want.

I remembered something my daugher said to me several weeks ago. We need to listen to each other and seek to understand.

She's right. We need to be heroic. Listen and talk about what matters...in person...without malice.