This is an opinion column.

A guy named Chuck Colvin – an “almost 88-year-old” from the Birmingham area – wrote a note in response to a column I posted after the election.

“Maybe I missed the whole point of your article because I confess to being a somewhat paranoid conservative,” he began, and for some reason that made me smile. It was just a little crystal of introspection that made his coming hard truths easier to swallow.

I wrote back and he wrote back and we talked on the phone, briefly. We spoke about a lot of things in not-so-many words. Politics and media, perception and truth, the power of civil discourse, and sadness over a world in which disagreement too often turns to disdain.

In the course of all that he said something that stuck in my brain. I hope it will never leave.

“I have a number of friends who certainly don’t agree with me,” he said. “I value their friendship more than my opinions.”

You gain some wisdom in almost 88 years.

A guy named Bryan Dodson of New Hope in north Alabama – an Army vet who considers himself very conservative on economic issues and a little less so on social stuff – wrote to me, too.

He was pretty blunt. He wrote of George Soros and the liberal media and oozing bias. We wrote back and forth a bit, until he wrote the thing I’d been thinking:

“What I miss most, as a 72-year-old, is the total lack of civil discourse on issues that affect us all. I still believe most Americans want the same things; the difference is how we get there.”

We ended up on the phone, too. I am glad we did.

We realized we had some things in common. We both grew up in north Alabama. We were both raised Methodist. We both went to the University of Alabama. We both had three kids with strong opinions, and we both wanted the best for them. By the time it was over, one or the other of us had said “I agree” roughly 15 times.

It happens. When we try. It happens more in real life than it does on social media, or in the press, or in silos built by a world of apps and emojis and bubbles that genuinely give us different understandings of reality.

It’s not that I learned all this from Colvin and Dodson and others I talked to in the days after the election. They just reminded me of truths I’ve known all my life.

When you take time to listen to someone, to find out what they feel and why they feel that way, it’s hard to hate them. It’s easy to like them. No matter their race or religion or nationality or age or – gasp – even their politics.

Dodson and Colvin — Dr. Colvin as it turns out — and I will probably never agree on some political things. But at the end of our days, who cares? The point of this country is not agreement. The point is that we can disagree and still exist together.

Our hopes don’t lie in defeating those who think differently. They sure don’t lie in abandoning our convictions. Our hopes lie in having enough confidence in ourselves and our beliefs to hear what other people have to offer.

I won’t say it. I’ll let Dodson, who gets his news from Fox and News Nation, put it in his words.

“Even though you and I can have, or two people can have a conversation, it may not change anybody’s opinion,” he said. “But you gain a new perspective on how people look at things.”

And who knows. When you get to know someone, when you treat them fairly or kindly or simply with tolerance, you plant a seed that might just grow. It has happened to me.

So in the wake of this election I’ve resolved to engage more purposefully with those who disagree with me. Not for professional reasons, but for personal ones.

Because I claim to believe in tolerance. I claim to believe in people. And in my heart I am like Dr. Colvin.

I value people more than my own opinions.

John Archibald is a two-time Pulitzer winner.