We’re really all the same!

 

We paint goodness white and evil black
Black money, black sheep, black mail.
Just a colour – so much flak!
Through the millennia, across the world, this logic prevails
Our language colour-coded, just like our thoughts!

The colour of the skin speaks to us,
Not the heart, nor the eyes, least the soul.
We only see what’s most superfluous
Our minds are closed, our choices made;
Unaware that our judgement has totally misled us.

Why is it so easy to dismiss another,
And to think we’re better than the rest?
The colour of my skin decides my fate,
my race determines my worth, all else fails the test.
Were we born to slight each other thus?
And never think beyond our nest.

How about we raise the bar of our conscience
To confront our own demons, and accept our share of the blame?
Think before uttering an unfair word, discard mindless prejudice;
Refuse to be silent spectators playing along with the game.
Instead, put ourselves in others’ shoes, learn to feel their pain.
‘cos underneath the sun tan, we’re really all the same!

Moment

 

A dew drop of time that can hold an eternity within
That fleeting instant when bonds of a lifetime may begin;
Powerful enough to create memories to cherish
Yet so ethereal – in a flash they vanish.

Moments of laughter and sorrow, moments of fear and fun;
images from a reel like a dream well-spun.
It only takes a moment to trust and another to hope,
One fills you with warmth and the other helps you cope.

Capture it in a picture, or better still – hold it in your heart
But only the ones that in your smile put back the spark.
These building blocks of life, if filled with love and care
are ours to treasure, more precious than gems rarest of rare.

An unkind moment may occasionally cross your path,
Best to let it gently pass rather than give in to wrath.
Moments of compassion more important than being right,
Moments of letting grudges go better than holding on to them tight.

Too tiny to measure, delicate as a snowflake
Each one is unique, there is no second take;
Every moment well-lived creates an impact so profound,
Can make your spirits soar and spread positivity all around.

3 truths I gleaned from a great book

 

As we’re all coming to grips with being confined to our homes, life does have wonderfully strange ways of showing us the occasional silver lining, or at least presenting us with opportunities to create it for ourselves.

For me the silver lining has been to be able to catch up on my first love – reading. The commute-less days leave me with plenty of time and peace to curl up with a book and lose myself in another world. It’s an experience I treasure and one which perhaps I had lost much of a connection with during recent years, as I trudged through life’s mundane challenges.

The latest “treasure” that I had the good fortune of being introduced to by my daughter, is the book “Educated” by Tara Westover. While this isn’t a book review I am attempting to write, it’s more about what I took away from this memoir and from the interviews of the author about her work. There are some precious insights in there that are so valuable that I felt I just had to document them, although they have made an indelible impression on my mind and are a permanent addition to my repertoire of core beliefs and ideals.

To begin with a brief backdrop – the author grew up in a family adhering to a survivalist sect (in Idaho, U.S.) that believed in minimalistic living. This meant never getting the chance of a formal education, never availing the benefits of modern medicine and pretty much leading a predictable, isolated life tucked away from the rest of the world.

“Educated” is the author’s journey depicting her struggles and conflicts as she finally breaks free from that mold to take her first steps (at the age of seventeen) towards getting herself a formal education (finally culminating in a PhD from Cambridge University). What’s fascinating about this autobiography is not only the transformation that this journey brings about in the author, but the manner in which her sensitive mind understands some deeper truths that most of us who take our education for granted, often simply miss out on.

Truth # 1: Stop putting people into boxes

I doubt anyone of us can claim to be innocent of this trait. Tara Westover admits in each of her interviews, that during her initial days at the university, she still held the same prejudices about race, gender stereotypes and homophobia that she had been raised with. She cringes at the memory of the times when she had expressed her outdated opinions over casual conversations, but at the same time is grateful to friends who did not give up on her, countering her every argument with reason and logic until she could expand her mind to grow out of them.

Taking a look at this from another perspective, she also encountered religious bigots who although unflinching in their stance, demonstrated unusual levels of compassion and generosity that many modern and open-minded people may never have been capable of.

There is value in every person and individuals are too complex to be categorised based on their external and even internal traits.

Truth # 2: Reality is usually a far cry from our assumptions

If the human race understood this fact, the world would be a gentler, more peaceful place. The author talks about the rural-urban divide in the U.S. that is characterized by heaps of misinformation and ignorance about each by the other. Having been a part of both sides, she says that the way people in rural Idaho describe city dwellers and vice versa couldn’t in fact be farther away from the truth. Stereotypes are only a part and do not constitute the whole.

Drawing parallels to our world – how easily do we fall prey to prejudices about people from other ethnicities, religions or from “enemy countries”, and cling on to them as if our very lives and faith depended on those apprehensions and antipathies.

Beneath the layers of diverse cultural beliefs and traditions, we are essentially the same beings, driven by the same motivations, fuelled by the same feelings.

Truth # 3: The real meaning of education

It’s normal to get carried away while we try to define what being educated means. Does it only mean acquiring expertise in a field or knowing more about a particular topic than most of those around you? The author’s words from a recent interview sum it up beautifully when she describes education as the “spirit of enquiry”. Being educated is not so much about knowing a whole lot of things but more about trying to explore ideas alien to yours. It’s about viewing the world with an open mind, allowing your curiosity to broaden the horizons of your knowledge and having the grace and humility to accept different points of view.

The long and short of it: being truly educated necessarily means shedding every iota of arrogance and continuing to be a life-long seeker in the quest for knowledge.

Grateful to this silver lining – a great book that reconnected me with the three fundamental truths that are often forgotten in the hustle and bustle of daily living.