Have you ever tried to go through the day with your primary eye closed? Just the slight perspective shift of a few inches can cause pain. Yes, you can retrain your eyes--even to the point of seeing upside down, but that is not the purpose of this post. I hope to point out the synergy of sight and how that teamwork maximizes the different points of view as we make transitions to a better society.
A little history about me. I was raised by some unexpectedly eclectic people in California. Thanks first to my good parents who taught me to love cultures, beliefs, and literature from around the world, then to my teachers who helped me investigate the world around me, and then the many students, coworkers and strangers I met and conversed with daily. I was not raised to be normal.
I did not look normal. I was short and scrawny. I did not have a normal name. I had glasses, but was not particularly bright. I was forced to find my place and stand up for who I was because I was not normal, I did many abnormal activities. Also, I did not excel in what normal people would consider normal, but in the normal world I too had to make my mark.
I loved sports and played basketball, football, baseball, and soccer, but was nearly always picked last. I tended to gravitate to individual sports like track, wrestling, boxing, badminton, frisbee, tennis, trampoline, diving, swimming, and worst of all dance. Sure, climbing trees, going camping, playing with kites, skateboarding, playing with Legos, and model building were normal, but passions like origami, pottery, macramé, crochet, sewing, embroidery, bicycling, calligraphy, choir, and computers (back in the day) were not normal. You could say I was confronted with normal expectations every day and had to find my place in them.
I retreated whenever possible, but fortunately in the long term, retreat was not always possible and I forged a strong backbone for who I was. I was often mistreated, misrepresented, mispronounced, misaligned, and misunderstood. It got so bad that I simply would not express what I liked, because odds were more likely that I would like something everyone else was doing and instead would join in. Oh yeah, except for pranking, swearing, smoking, drinking and drugs. I was the ultimate outsider, but that gave me amazing perspective on things and acceptance of people who were different. Truly different.
I loved to listen to people, and "hang" with people of all ages. I could instinctively feel what they were feeling and understand what they were saying. This helped me learn languages later in life too. I cannot pretend to know what I have not experienced, but the relationships I have built and the interactions I have had with so many various peoples gave me the ability to empathize deeply with people that look nothing like me. I grew up as the minority (religiously, culturally, linguistically, athletically and later in work environments even manifested as the minority according to gender and race). In spite of this isolation, I learned to love people of all stripes and work well with them to maximize our contributions.
I have always believed that the most precious beliefs and feelings I had were to be shared with people of all nations, creeds, and kindreds. My differences made me strong and able to relate to practically anyone. As I learned other cultures and practices, I found the truth that deep down, we are all brothers and sisters of the same universal creator. We all shared in the common attributes that helped us live, love, learn, and leave a legacy. Though different, we all have infinite value and are loved. I learned that we can share that love and by doing so become one enlightened people. There have been several times in my life where I have felt that love around me, encircling me and encouraging me, and at other times I have been that light for others through the contributions I have made to get involved, break down barriers, open dialogs, make a difference and encourage that spark in others.
As a wearer of glasses, I have always needed to see things as clearly as possible, because I know what it is not to see, or to be seen. In my attempts to see people for who they were, I was in return seen for who I was and have valued and been valued greatly over the years. I was also aware, because my skin burned easily, that too much exposure to the sun can damage me in other ways, so I wore transition lenses to protect my eyes. These lenses would get darker when I would get in the sun. I was so used to them that I did not even notice the transition. In life I have had transition lenses on my mind and heart. Through my relentless and habitual search for meaning in differences and acquiring many of others' attributes, I had become blinded to many of those differences in how I relate to others. Being the minority was not difficult, because to me everyone was my friend and family. I had effectively developed a race, creed, nationality, gender, religion filter that allowed me to be myself and be with others effortlessly. I am not normal.
I see a new transition away from acceptance and compassion for people to one of oblation and subservience toward classes and divisions. The world today is intent on pointing out every difference and treating people according to ever changing stereotypes. World organizations insist, that these differences must be acknowledged and apologies, priorities, patronage, and performances are to be offered up as sacrifices to appease these new man made gods to honor every possible faction fracturing our society to the point of negating the obvious and denying the truth. Indeed to these gods the individual does not matter. Borderless understanding and sharing are not acceptable. Love and compassion are only accepted if one bows to the new names, new genders, new nationalities, new minorities, in the name of our newly installed leaders. This transition is one that no longer protects and clarifies for the individual to gain better understanding and unity. It is one that seeks to divide and gain power over the individual by first issuing promissory notes of equity that never will nor ever can be cashed, second seizing power amid the confusion of multiple crisis, and finally resetting our societal structure with a new normal made in their own image to ensure that balance may never again be restored.
I am not normal and believe that prosperity comes from liberty as just individuals are free to seek and be better. Without good and moral people no movement of equity will feed the poor without slavery of the masses. Slavery was all about division and power. Our nation did away with it, and now like a dog is going back to eat it's own vomit in the name of equity. We do not need these new lenses that obscure our view of one another. We do not need new evangelists to tell us of privilege.
We need the abnormal unique society set in this land by providence to preserve liberty. We need free speech, open hearts, and sound minds. Don't allow haters to label, malign, or stereotype you! Be true to truth! Align yourself with it. Listen to every sincere person and we will heal the rifts that have cut through our nation and our families before the new leaders can perform their reset and sterilize the ground for future generations.
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