Further Contemplating...

After a very thought-provoking conversation with a good friend over lunch, I began to express my frustration with humanity, and why it is that humans have so many divisions. So I'm writing this particular blog to further the discussion from a previous blog (The Division of Unity-12/29), respond to a comment that was posted to a another blog (Why???-12/12), and to make sense of the hurt that has become my life in the last two months. So, if you haven't read those blogs, some of this may not make sense to you (hint, hint...go read them, then come back).

I have always considered myself to be an optimist with a realists perspective. However, what I'm about to write is going to sound more pessimistic than anything.

It really bothers me that there are social divisions. Those major divisions stemming from race, language and religion. With them, people who would be perfectly fine friends often never realize what the humanity of friendship has to offer. Without these divisions, our lives seem to lack direction and meaning. So, it is a sad state that we ALL exist in because, in my best estimation, we are all bound to lead lives that we might not if it weren't for these social constructs. Indeed, we are all bound to lead lives that aren't fully satisfying to us, but that we must lead in order to fulfill the requirements of these constructs as they relate to the people/environment around us.

I know that's a very hard thing to explain (trust me, I can explain it easier in person), and if you do understand what I mean, it's probably hard to accept as the reality, but trust me, it's the truth. No single person does what they do because it totally makes them happy; they do what they do (at least in part) because of the influence of these three factors around them.

Let me give a couple of examples to explain my point.

I know these two people that were heavily involved with each other romantically. From an outside perspective, it was clear that they were in love, and I knew enough about them to know that they had discussed marriage and why it would or would not work out. They were from different races and different religions, though they shared a language commonality. To him, religion was most important with family running a tight second, and it was vice-versa for her. In fact, for her, it was more like:

1a. Family
1b. Religion

so if 1a was satisfied, then 1b was also satisfied. To work up from 1b to 1a would be possible, but hard.

Well, I happened to know them very well, and when it came down to it, I know they agreed that they couldn't get married because of their strong allegiances to family/religion. The problem with this reality was, despite their strong convictions, they were still heavily in love. She ended up caving to the pressure of the family, and broke it off while they were still in love in order to fulfill the requirements of her family (which is representative of race, culture, and religion in this instance), despite the happiness that she felt from the loving relationship she was in. She then moved into a relationship with a guy that was more acceptable by her surroundings, and my friend (the guy) was more-or-less forced to move on without her.

Being both of their friend, I wanted to ask them why? But, I already knew why, and it was already clear. Their thinking was indicative of my thinking. There's so much to risk if you truly seek what you want out of life (family, finances, friends, success...), and seemingly so much to maintain by not going against the grain (it's just easier to keep your family, friends, and community happy). So, both party's were eventually going to have to reject the notion of personal/mutual happiness in order to appease, or make the world that they exist in happy. It just so happened that she was more willing to make that transition than he was at that time.

Now certainly there is happiness in keeping your world smooth, and making the people around you happy. But what about your personal needs, wishes and desires? Are they truly being met if you can't indulge in the humanity of romantic love because of the social constructs that exist around you? Are we bound to live a life of "pseudo-happiness?"

The other example that I'd give is in relation to the tragic Tsunami's that hit much of Asia and part of Africa this week. At this point, the death toll is over 120,000. People directly affected are from 2 continents and over 40 countries. Among the dead are Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, and I'm sure many other religions. Their are Blacks, Whites, Indians, Indonesians, Kenyans, Sri Lankans, Sumatrans, Germans, Swedish, and tons of other races and nationalities of people among the dead. And finally, they spoke a myriad of languages (Arabic, Hindi, English, German, French, just to name a few).

And you know what, the only thing that matters now is that the survivors need as much help and aid as they can get, no matter their Religion, Race, Family, Culture or Language!

So if these classifications don't matter now because of the immensity of the tragedy, why do we ever allow them to keep us from relating to one another on levels that would truly make each individual happy? Why did my friends allow these things to keep them from getting married like they really wanted to? Why do we allow these surrounding factors to dictate how we ultimately live and end up?

So maybe what I'm about to say is the farthest thing from realistic as is possible, but it is what's on my mind. And I recognize that my strong religious background might disagree with this (because religion should define who we are and how we live, and you work outward from there, I've been taught), but it would seem to me that God would want our first priority to be the relationship between one human being to another, not how two humans interact based on divisive tools. And if that human to human interaction is compassion for those in need, or intimate love from a man to a woman (and vice-versa) , then that should trump everything else.
Because we aren't all Sikhs, Muslims or Jews; we don't all speak Spanish, Chinese or Yoruba; and we aren't all Black, White, or Brown. The one thing that we all are, though, is human.

Why doesn't that seem to be important?

-Maelstrom