(Disclaimer: I write early in the morning in a half sleep. The ideas written below are spontaneous and are all on some sort of journey towards the truth. I reserve the right to be wrong, to make mistakes, and to adjust my views at any time in the future for reasons all my own. Thanks for reading.)
I woke up this morning thinking about all of the discussions these days surrounding sexual identity, political affiliation, financial position, and religious beliefs and was comparing these battles in society to times past and the fact that it seems people are practicing nothing in terms of their own personal sphere of privacy. When did so many things become everyone else's business and why are people arguing so vehemently about these issues when in reality it has nothing to do with anyone else?
I am a private person by nature. My mother was intensely protective of her private life and I guess I got a lot of that from her. My father was not a private person. He would openly blab about everything to everybody and spread things about others he had heard from 'reliable' resources. All of us are the way we are because it is how we grew up, it was the culture of our childhood. My mother was raised in what I call familial seclusion while my father was raised amidst a large family that knew everybody else's business and weren't afraid to discuss things openly. I'm neither lauding or criticizing either only to say that I think people come by these traits naturally.
When I think about this I wonder if I am being secretive about things. I guess in a way I am. However, are some things really any body else's business? Do I do this out of a fear of what other people might think about me, which in itself is a rather faulty insecurity of mine. The integrity of my personal sphere is extremely important to me. I do it just because I don't see why anyone would care about these things about me one way or the other and why it is any of my business what other people chose for their lives. On top of all of this is the ridiculous notion that I should go out and convince someone else that what they are doing is wrong and the way I think things should be is better.
The thing that matters most to me about myself and others is the soul of the human being at the core of a person. All of the mental schnick schnack that we layer on top of our core being is really just smoke and mirrors. The way I see it, this core is what personal privacy and integrity of the being that resides there is what is important. Throughout our lives we develop through our experiences in life. We evolve on a daily basis and create a protective shell to address the experiences we face in our environments all in the unconscious subliminal effort to protect the rightness of our core being. I am (refers to this core being) okay. To get there, what hoops we all jump through is really quite amazing.
"I AM OK"
"I am 'OK'." This is the thing we all want to feel. If we don't feel that way then we go off on a wild goose chase to figure out why we don't "Feel OK."
I know that in my life I have always felt relief that I was "normal" when I discovered what I was feeling was understandable because of the expriences I had in life. It is sort of like finding out from the dentist why your tooth hurts so much...it is because you have a cavity or something. Once you know what it is you feel better. Psychologically this is also very much true. It is what makes therapy so vital. I learned that my perception of myself was largely created by my upbringing until such point that I would decide I wasn't playing certain games any longer.
So what are the areas of the Personal Sphere that really only belong to us and no one else?
Spirituality
One of the greatest things about the United States Constitution is that it protects every individual's right to freedom of religion, spirituality, or lack there of. I feel that my spirituality is nobody else's business. I have my own way of finding strength through spiritual practices. I'm not going to push it on others and I sure don't want others telling me what I need in terms of relgion. I'm certainly not going to judge someone because of their religious beliefs and I do this because I realize that these beliefs are just part of the schnick schnack we layer on top of ourselves to protect that inner being. I look for the core soul of a person, not all of the identifiers people put on display.
Political affiliation
I grew up thinking that we had privat balloting because it is nobody else's business how we vote. So why does everyone make their politicial afiliations so public? Isn't that like showing the world how you are voting? Isn't that giving up your right to privacy at the polls? I've never understood bumper stickers or yard signes or campaign pins. The privacy of my vote is a sacred thing to me. It is the one place on earth where people can be totally honest without the fear of repercusions and that is the way it should be. People should be swayed in their voting not through peer pressure, popularity, or a loyalty to directional philosophies but through the exchange of ideas. The fact that 'news' organizations are telling you what to think about the news instead of simply presenting the facts and letting you form your own opinions about them is really not a positive developoment in our media world today.
Sexual orientation
One of the most central issues that humans are faced with is their sexuality. The topic has been very poorly delt with throughout history. It is as natural as breathing yet it is bound to so many social morays. Sexuality is one of the core issues we have to deal with growing up and there is absolutely nothing that can deal with this. I'm sure it is quite natural to question "Why am I male or female?" "What is it like to be the other sex?" "Is there something wrong with me?" The truth of the matter is, nobody can choose what we are born being. The result is that we have to play with the cards we are delt.
Throughout the process of growing up I believe it takes a good 15 years to come to some conclusions about our sexual selves and another several to figure out what to do with how we feel about it. We get to choose how we want to live life and it isn't anyone else's business what we choose as far as I see it. After all, someone else's sexuality has nothing to do with mine. What I don't think is healthy at all is putting all of this on display for everyone to see and make judgements about. Such things require serious thought and should not be arrived at until mature adulthood when the pubescent hormonal storms have been weathered. Whatever individual characteristics we choose to practice are not my business to judge. I'll accept whatever you are or you think you are. It doesn't matter to me, because it isn't "who you are at the core of your being." A species isn't male or female, a species is both. We as human beings are as well both.
What we choose as our costume is a matter of choice unrelated to what biology decided for us at birth but it doesn't change what we are given at birth. What we do with it is none of anyone else's business but the individual. In a truly free society we should feel no persecution from the government, religions, or socially accepted morays that have historically tortured people about these issues. Just let people be who they are. When we die, all that is left is the core being anyway, how we live life is completely up to us and it is not up to anyone else to judge. What I don't get is why people open themselves up to judgement by making it everyone else's business? Keep the integrity of your personal sphere intact.
Our Right to Make Mistakes
I am very fearful of criticism. Not a great attribute of mine I'll admit. On occasion I would enter a rehearsal and say to the people sitting behind tables that "I reserve the right to make mistakes." Even when I write I often feel compelled to put in a disclaimer at the beginning of everything I say or write because I want it to be known that my current views are not the end but are at somewhere in the middle of what my ultimate thoughts on any given subject are. "I reserve the right to be wrong and make mistakes in anything I write or say." After all, everything I do is a sort of 'thought experiment."
Whatever people are dealing with in their lives they have the right to be wrong and should always remain open to other points of view. There is nothing worse than a society of people who barracade themselves behind fortresses of ideologies and groups. Be an individual, not a sheep that just follows what all the other sheep are doing, which is usually being led to the slaughter by some shepherd who wants to make a buck off of your hide. Never give yourself up to anyone or anything. Be your own person.
"People need to know who I am."
No they don't.
Why can't we all be seen for just who we are? Why do we feel the need to explain ourselves to other or to have them explain themselves to us?
Probably it is a function of trust. However, that really is limited to things like being a doctor, lawyer, or indian chief. Can I trust you to do something like build a building or wire a house for electricity. But people don't need to know all of these other things like political affiliation, religion, sexuality, or financial status.
The extreme cruelty of today's America is leading to extreme measures taken by people who are trying to cope with it. This is the most Un-American thing I can think of. So many people are getting on bandwagons of issues and are overcompenating in areas that are frankly quite dangerous.
When I flip through the channels on TV or scroll down Facebook or YouTube etc, there is such craziness going on in the United States and the world that I wonder if people haven't simply gone crazy. So much anger, hate, judgement, and a thirst for attention that anything is worth doing as long as it makes you money. The stupider the better. The noisiest are the ones that get all of the attention while you rarely see a real person of value creating something useful. People are claiming to be experts who have never had to prove themselves in any truly critical arena. It is just a mad dash to the top of Google or YouTube, by any means possible. The more nuts you are the better your chances of being heard. We are rewarding nutcases today and it needs to stop.
This can't be who we are as human beings. If we believe in these antics then we are truly lost.
I believe we need to maintain our personal integrity by valueing who we are as well as who others are despite all the schnick schnack that is worn by us all. Don't fall for the fake. Be who you really are, not a conjured up idea of that. That is enough because in the end it is all there is.