There are no grays. There is only right and wrong, anything that isn't right, is wrong. Anything that sparkles isn't manly.
In contemporary U.S. society, everyone mainly practices their inalienable right to be a 'judge.' We believe that passing judgment protects us (saturated fat is bad, blond is good.) Persons and situations are taken out of their context and put on heartless trial to determine their value versus the hegemonic norm . We have so much dogma telling the good people what to think, who to believe, what to reject, and what to accept. And who really escapes this? No one. It doesn't matter what group a person belongs to, there is always an 'other' to fear and hate.
It's the oversimplification that gets us.
Suffering occurs.
And by becoming a 'judge' everyone can 'protect' themselves.
As a human being I try to practice understanding from any point of view, but even I have 'others' that strike anger into my heart. Let me give you and example from my life, particularly.
I have a hate tendency, and I will admit it. It's not that I dislike a minority, or a sexual orientation, it's not that I have any particular issue with Islam or Judaism. It is certainly religious in sway: it's the christians. Not just the catholics, or the mormons, it's the presbyterians, and the protestants. It's any of them. I don't really pretend it's a logical feeling anymore. I've aligned myself, from a young age, with the queers, with the punks, with the intellectual dissidents. I want nothing more than to be left alone, and with my blossoming education of religious history, I learned just how bad they are (as a group) at leaving people alone.
As a part of the 'queer' group I am other to the norm, so to me, christians are the 'other.' It doesn't matter how self-oriented their faithful activities are, I find them strange, upsetting, and frightening. It intimidates my sense of self control. I don't fear conspiracies on the part of the government, I fear thought control through the guise of religion.
The most profound way a system can control its inhabitants is via their rights to their body. Think about the hot issues that relate to religion and sometime politics: abortion, same-sex marriage, drug laws, the illegality of suicide and assisted suicide. All these things relate to our ability to control our own bodies. It parades under the guise of 'help' but the question I wish to beg is: how can one person ever really know what is right for another person without living their life from day one, from their point of view?
What do you think?
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Matter at Hand
So, life is a complicated thing.
When I was young I thought everything followed rules and that a series of social decisions would yield a specific life-result. To a certain extent, I have found this to be true. For example, if you attend college, pass the required classes, and finished the coursework necessary for a major program, you will be granted a degree. This is a very solid and simple example. The erroneous expectation would be that a degree would grant guaranteed happiness via the earning of monies working at a "good" job - one that you assume you will enjoy before you ever choose a major course track at University.
As a youth the rules that I assumed applied were even less founded in reality, and relied much more heavily on my assumptions and unrealistic expectations. (On a side note, whenever I refer to "unrealistic expectations" I am directly citing the cause of much unhappiness. Think about it, when you are upset about a situation in life, it is because you expected something else to happen and that expectation was not necessarily reasonable. These expectations can be anything, expecting a job to be happy, friends to never get mad at you, difficult situations to simply not arise, you name it. So as I mention unrealistic expectations, know that this is the concept I am alluding to.) The expectations I had were based on many unfounded social ideals like a persons "coolness," their social standing, and their ability to impress people (the concept of people was always vague and undefined, because I certainly didn't care about impressing the preppy majority in schools.) I thought that if one could achieve all these things, luck in relationships, skill and finesse in social situations making one popular and respected, that all the pleasures of life would follow. I truly thought that if I could be as amazing as I viewed other people that everything in my life would be perfect.
And then I started to grow. My eyes opened to the different facets of life, the way people interact, and I watched those who have what they want and those who are unhappy. Slowly it started to dawn on me that happiness and the pleasures of life have a lot more to do with a positive attitude and stubbornness in the pursuit of them then anything else.
Hypothetically, I may be able to stack my outcome in life if I can set these observations to use.
When I was young I thought everything followed rules and that a series of social decisions would yield a specific life-result. To a certain extent, I have found this to be true. For example, if you attend college, pass the required classes, and finished the coursework necessary for a major program, you will be granted a degree. This is a very solid and simple example. The erroneous expectation would be that a degree would grant guaranteed happiness via the earning of monies working at a "good" job - one that you assume you will enjoy before you ever choose a major course track at University.
As a youth the rules that I assumed applied were even less founded in reality, and relied much more heavily on my assumptions and unrealistic expectations. (On a side note, whenever I refer to "unrealistic expectations" I am directly citing the cause of much unhappiness. Think about it, when you are upset about a situation in life, it is because you expected something else to happen and that expectation was not necessarily reasonable. These expectations can be anything, expecting a job to be happy, friends to never get mad at you, difficult situations to simply not arise, you name it. So as I mention unrealistic expectations, know that this is the concept I am alluding to.) The expectations I had were based on many unfounded social ideals like a persons "coolness," their social standing, and their ability to impress people (the concept of people was always vague and undefined, because I certainly didn't care about impressing the preppy majority in schools.) I thought that if one could achieve all these things, luck in relationships, skill and finesse in social situations making one popular and respected, that all the pleasures of life would follow. I truly thought that if I could be as amazing as I viewed other people that everything in my life would be perfect.
And then I started to grow. My eyes opened to the different facets of life, the way people interact, and I watched those who have what they want and those who are unhappy. Slowly it started to dawn on me that happiness and the pleasures of life have a lot more to do with a positive attitude and stubbornness in the pursuit of them then anything else.
Hypothetically, I may be able to stack my outcome in life if I can set these observations to use.
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