This resonates so powerfully. The very notion of identity is like the flimsiest of plastic clingfilm covering the infinitely rich dessert of Self. The plastic is great at keeping the flies off your cake, but getting lost in identity seems to me like eating the wrapper and forgetting about the treat it contains. Thanks for this post!
Your son's question was beyond his years. How beautiful is his awareness.
Little boxes, little black and white boxes to make momentary comforts to those buying into the fabricated boxes only brings vast suffering in the end. I understand the need for trying to make sense of patterns, but when the efforts of trying to make sense results in harming the hearts and minds of others, of the individual, it ceases to be of any true value. Until we can educate ourselves without denying the gift of a human being to be a self-reflective and valuable consciousness, we aren't a truly learned species. It takes courage to not rely on boxes, to see an individual as a unique expression.
This resonates with so many things I've read or heard recently. One in particular was an Isolarii book (https://isolarii.com) of conversations with Edouard Glissant. He talked about the concept he had of "creolization" -- not multiculturalism, exactly, but the recognition that different cultures and identities will always affect one another and change in relation to that which they interact with. I'd never thought about creole language or culture that way but it was really interesting. As was reading this!
I will try to get hold of that book. As a teacher (in working class areas) I was always dismayed by the low expectations some kids had of themselves, because of the stories they and others had constructed about their prospects. Once you could get them to see through that, they did well for themselves.
On the cultural identity aspect, I found an interesting clash of cultures when I worked for a government organisation. We weren't allowed to accept gifts, but we hosted a meeting with people from Japan, who would have been highly insulted had we not accepted their gift. We got around it by accepting the gift, and then I think it was given to charity or used to raise money for charity.
This resonates so powerfully. The very notion of identity is like the flimsiest of plastic clingfilm covering the infinitely rich dessert of Self. The plastic is great at keeping the flies off your cake, but getting lost in identity seems to me like eating the wrapper and forgetting about the treat it contains. Thanks for this post!
Your son's question was beyond his years. How beautiful is his awareness.
Little boxes, little black and white boxes to make momentary comforts to those buying into the fabricated boxes only brings vast suffering in the end. I understand the need for trying to make sense of patterns, but when the efforts of trying to make sense results in harming the hearts and minds of others, of the individual, it ceases to be of any true value. Until we can educate ourselves without denying the gift of a human being to be a self-reflective and valuable consciousness, we aren't a truly learned species. It takes courage to not rely on boxes, to see an individual as a unique expression.
This resonates with so many things I've read or heard recently. One in particular was an Isolarii book (https://isolarii.com) of conversations with Edouard Glissant. He talked about the concept he had of "creolization" -- not multiculturalism, exactly, but the recognition that different cultures and identities will always affect one another and change in relation to that which they interact with. I'd never thought about creole language or culture that way but it was really interesting. As was reading this!
I will try to get hold of that book. As a teacher (in working class areas) I was always dismayed by the low expectations some kids had of themselves, because of the stories they and others had constructed about their prospects. Once you could get them to see through that, they did well for themselves.
On the cultural identity aspect, I found an interesting clash of cultures when I worked for a government organisation. We weren't allowed to accept gifts, but we hosted a meeting with people from Japan, who would have been highly insulted had we not accepted their gift. We got around it by accepting the gift, and then I think it was given to charity or used to raise money for charity.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Whitman, Leaves of Grass