Tag: culture

  • Where is your humanity?

    Where is your humanity?

    Taking pride in the colour of your skin or ethnicity distracts you from your humanity.

    Our humanness, our gentleness, our inclination towards kindness – these are all part of our natural state.

    We lose it when our need to be associated with significance or superiority distracts us from this, and replaces it with the fear of being inadequate.

    When we lose sight of the fear of inadequacy, responding from a place of fear becomes our new normal.

    Everything that threatens the source of our significance – that is, our skin colour, religion, cultural roots, etc. – then feels like a threat to our sense of self.

    Thus, we feel the anger, resentment, or blind rage that rises when we are judged by the colour of our skin, our religion, our ethnicity, or any other association that makes us feel significant.

    But, we grow convinced that we’re standing up for a good cause by protecting what we value, even though the way in which we protect it undermines the very essence of what we claim to stand for.

    That’s when it becomes clear that we only stand for what we do because it offers us a place in this world through being associated with the cause.

    It offers us significance and protects us from irrelevance.

    That’s when we’ve traded who we are, for who we want to be perceived as, because we’re convinced that we are not enough.

    Own Your Life.

    It always starts with you.

  • Willingly obliged

    Willingly obliged

    This is most true for religious subscription and cultural heritage, but applies to every relationship in our life.

    Choice inspires willingness because a choice is driven by our belief in the benefit of our contribution towards others.

    Obligation inspires contempt because it is most often associated with the threat of a negative repercussion.

    What drives our choices and our sense of obligation therefore must be considered when we find ourselves growing angry at the thought of non-compliance from others, or the expectation of compliance from ourselves by others.

    It is quite possible to choose consciously to serve an obligation. But that choice must be done willingly and not under duress. Duress turns a choice into an unwilling obligation.

    Fear has a limited life span. Therefore, the moment we establish compliance with a lifestyle or behaviour through fear, we must prepare ourselves for the inevitable backlash.

    Live consciously. Love deliberately. And serve without obligation.

    Perhaps, beloved, in that lies the secret to experiencing peace in this lifetime.

  • You are more than how you look

    You are more than how you look

    Taking pride in the colour of your skin or ethnicity distracts you from your humanity.

    Our humanness, our gentleness, our inclination towards kindness – these are all part of our natural state.

    It’s our need to be associated with significance or superiority that distracts us from this, and replaces it with the fear of being inadequate.

    When we lose sight of the fear, responding from a place of fear becomes our new normal.

    Everything that threatens the source of our significance – that is, our skin colour, religion, cultural roots, etc. – then feels like a threat to our sense of self.

    Thus, we feel the anger, resentment, or blind rage that rises when we feel undermined because of the colour of our skin, or any other association that makes us feel significant.

    In the absence of an awareness of who we are, it is inevitable that our external attributes will be all that feeds our self worth.

  • The value of values

    The value of values

    One of the paths to insanity is to try to reason around someone else’s actions or behaviour by assuming that their value system is the same as yours.

    This includes people who come from the same culture, tradition, ethnicity, and even family as you do.

    Our value system may be informed by a common framework or point of reference.

    But, unless everyone complies 100% with that framework, each interpretation or implementation of those values becomes a unique value system, as unique as each individual.

    When we don’t recognise these differences, we insist on compliance rather than understanding in the way each person adopts these values in their lives.

    That’s the root of misunderstanding: The assumption that because we have shared values on some key issues, we have shared values on all issues.

    Thus, relationships and homes are broken because of our expectations of compliance rather than our efforts towards understanding.

  • Me and my American wife

    Daughter: Daddy, mummy says the sandwiches are about to go into the press
    Me: Tell mummy it’s not a press, it’s a toaster
    Mummy: …

    The difference in terminology between what Americans call things, versus what we say in South Africa is quite amusing at times. My favourite so far has got to be the ‘hot water heater’ term that Americans use when referring to what we call a ‘geyser’. There’s many others, and I suspect that it will be the subject of a post that is entirely focused on exposing the ridiculous use of the Queen’s English by those that appropriated the culture and decided to call it ‘American’.*

    *And if you take that seriously, then you’re a dork! (Pre-emptive strike against trolls)

  • Frustration is that feeling you get when you see idiots waging arguments about issues that are distorted by their anger and inbred prejudices and sincerely wanting to correct them, but knowing that any attempt at reasonable discourse will fall on selectively deaf ears inviting nothing but venomous drivel in return. 　

  • This is all starting to feel too adult for me. I prefer playing with kids. They usually have no hidden agendas, political motives, or underhanded suspicions. If I imitate them, they’re happy, and if they imitate me, I’m happy, and we give and take without keeping score. All adults know is to be territorial as if puberty makes it compulsory for them to mark their territory. These adult games are ridiculous. Adults need to learn from children again, before the current template of adult role models all but eliminates any traces of the innocence of childhood.

    CJ

  • That Cultural Thing

    I once heard someone say something along the lines of:

    If you need government to protect your culture, then your culture is already dead

    These cultural appropriation-ists should consider this within a broader context. 

    Whether or not cultural appropriation is true, for me, is a side issue. The real issue is how did it get to the point where others felt comfortable enough to insult a culture without any fear of consequence? Relying on the respect of others is obviously a foolhardy exercise, but the moment you bend and sway in what you do or don’t practise in your own culture, you automatically end up taking from other cultures, or at best, contaminate your own culture to the point where it makes it fair game for others to do the same.

    Cultures have evolved and absorbed external influences for eons before the advent of the Internet, and as can be seen, the more connected we are, the greater the chances of cultural cross-contamination, if that is even a fair term to use. The surprising thing for me is how people are happy to cry foul when they see others ‘usurping’ their cultural heritage without due consideration for its roots and meanings, while they themselves openly embellish their lives with items or aspects from the culture of those they’re taking exception to. 

    This is all starting to feel too adult for me. I prefer playing with kids. They usually have no hidden agendas, political motives, or underhanded suspicions. If I imitate them, they’re happy, and if they imitate me, I’m happy, and we give and take without keeping score. All adults know is to be territorial as if puberty makes it compulsory for them to mark their territory. These adult games are ridiculous. Adults need to learn from children again, before the current template of adult role models all but eliminates any traces of the innocence of childhood.