Matt Van Swol
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Matt and Nick Sortor Visit at Matt's House
April 2025
Yesterday, I spent the entire day with @nicksortor.
He came to my home, hung out with my kids, and we talked in lawn chairs in my driveway for hours.
I would NEVER have done this, even a year ago.
I was inside a liberal echo-chamber that told me people like Nick were racist, sexist, bigoted, and just all-around just truly bad people.
I believed this to my very core.
In fact, when I got back on X after Hurricane Helene hit us here in Western North Carolina, I discovered I had MUTED Nick in my timeline.
I didn’t find out till later that HE was the one who kept sharing my videos, keeping us in the news, never giving up on us.
I learned some painful lessons over those next 6 months.
I discovered some of my most deeply held beliefs had not been fully thought through to the end.
That hating someone because they say something you disagree with is an awful way to live life and walls you off from the most interesting, kindest, most generous people in the world.
Because while I was busy wearing masks believing that most people on the Right were bigots who should be avoided…
Nick was there in Palestine Ohio.
Nick was there in Lahaina, Maui.
And Nick was there for all of us, in Western North Carolina.
Out of all the things I’ve learned in the last 7 months, the one thing that has hit me the hardest is this:
- Your beliefs mean NOTHING, if you don’t DO anything good.
Embarrassingly, what I discovered about myself, was that I was very concerned about APPEARING good, but I wasn’t DOING anything good.
For Nick, and so many others I’ve learned from over the past couple of months… they live the opposite.
They don’t care what others think of them, they care about doing good, more than the appearance of it.
For that, I owe Nick and the X platform, so much.
Source: https://x.com/matt_vanswol/status/1916599111073083764