You will face many defeats in life but never let yourself be defeated. ~ Maya Angelou
If you’re a free-thinking geek like me, you know you can be a real nuisance or what Paul describes as “thorn in the side” to the moral police force. They cross every “t” and dot ever “i”. I forgot too many times to cross my t’s. Oh well! I was not very good in math. I barely passed geometry and was terrified of trigonometry and physics, and anything to do with math. For awhile there I thought I was stupid by the way I was treated. Getting to know myself has been a wonderful journey to liking myself correctly. I’m not stupid. I’m just different. Math is not my forte. I’m good at something else. I understand now. I’m not afraid to be different in my thought life.
Be true to yourself!
We need to teach our children to talk about uncomfortable things. Things like death, divorce, child abuse, adoption, mental disorders, mental illnesses and mental health, spiritual things, money and sex. It should be in a free and safe place where they can think and express themselves without judgment. Without being frowned at. Without being shamed for thinking the way they do. Instead be affirmed as individuals.
Talking about uncomfortable things would compliment our age old culture. Our culture like spiritual things are not taught, they are caught. This means that values or behaviors are learned from the people who practice them, instead of being told. Simply put, moral values are not taught but caught. According to Naomi Baron in her essay, Rethinking Written Culture, she says that culture is defined by its practitioners’ [assumptions] about differences between spoken and written code, along with social and legal agreements about notions of authorship. Historically, it is not uncommon for societies with sophisticated written works to still essentially function as oral cultures. In other words, culture like everything else in life evolves.
Our culture is oral. We don’t even have characters. In the olden days, we used natural materials to convey messages like blisaus el buuch wrapped in a kebui placed in a tet carried by a runner. A Ngirturong a di mesang a runner e medengei el kmo a subed ngmlarker el mei. Now we have cellphones with I.D. caller and many sophisticated communication tools. We have cars and a compact road… no need for a runner. Life is changing and we cannot continue to think as our grandparents did and survive. Out migration becomes inevitable.
When we refuse to change, those who are not of the elite – the less fortunate will resent the stagnant society of the rich and famous e mo chemol a diak a llel e remiid er Ngebard. Sounds like a song, doesn’t it?. Could it be that it has been done before? Of course! Resentment is a byproduct of the fear response. When we sense that we are in danger, a part of our brain, called the amygdala, triggers the circuits for fear and vigilance to warn us to be more cautious. If we identify an actual threat, it triggers the fight or flight response. Our young people are taking flights knowing it’s a waste of time to fight a lost war.
Happy journey to the ones who left already. Remember, we’ll be here praying and routing for you and your children. Go stretch your wings and fly. My father used to say, “It’s not what you do it’s how you do it that counts. Whatever it is you will find to do, be the best as you can be even if you have to clean toilet.”