I had a lucky break when it’s came to my writing career. I was already ahead of the game when it came to what I could say versus what I couldn’t say. My last job was public facing, and as a Project Lead I would stand up in front of hundreds of people and talk to them about what we did and how it would benefit them. There were certain topics that I had to wildly stay away from, and boy was that learning curve steep at the beginning. I had to truly identify with my prejudices and shed them — job related of course. I worked in Mental Health so it was quite a wide field that I had to watch what I was saying.
Shedding my prejudices was quite a hard ride and I couldn’t believe how much I had. I realised a lot during my last place of work. Turns out I had a lot of prejudice towards religious people, but I shed that once I realised that I was only angry at myself for losing the father I had adopted in the Sky; it hurt losing that idea, you know? Especially when my own Dad had abandoned me. Then there was heavy people; I had a stiff journey learning that I was angry at people with weight problems because I had been bullied as a kid by one boy that didn’t like me because I was thin. It eventually dawned on me that most of my prejudices and biases were because of something that had happened to me earlier in life and that my mind has cast judgement on similar people.
The mind is a funny thing. It judges based on experience, and if all I have is the experience I have with one Indian kid at school then without talking to other Indians I’m going to think the rest of them are the same, right?
So, this is how I learned non-judgementalism. I still make irrational judgements of course, and I’m trying; I’m not perfect, but I am doing my best that I can. I’m also learning new things each day which is nice. It feels good to continually evolve. I reviewed one of my articles that was published on a magazine six months ago and I had to edit it further because my views have changed since then. Not dramatically, but I realised there were things in there that I’ve since learned that were incorrect or can seem offensive to some, so I adjusted it to my line of thinking of today. We forget that when we share things on Social media that it is there for the world to see, forever.
I don’t think many people are aware of this and it’s the failing of social media to a large degree. Most people are unaware of their ego’s, biases, and prejudices. Most people walk through life relatively unaware of what they are saying and the impact it can have on others, and if they are aware of the impact then they usually blame the receiver for being too ‘sensitive’ or a ‘snowflake.’ Social media like Facebook (especially in groups) amplifies most people that generally wouldn’t have an audience to sometimes have a very large audience. When you think about it if you write in a Facebook group of millions then quite a few people are going to see what you wrote. Your words now have meaning and you’re no longer just talking to your mate down the pub who isn’t going to judge you that harshly; you’re talking to an audience of thousands with wildly different viewpoints than yourself and some have quite different life experiences.
Let’s be perfectly clear here — I was professionally trained to a high level to watch what I say in large groups, and even now I make massive screw-ups, and it’s mainly because I’m challenging myself in areas that I don’t know much about, like race and gender. What happens when a person joins the discussion not understanding their biases and thinking that their own world-view is typical of everyone they meet?
A shit-storm is what I see.
Something that I’ve backed away from now because I just can’t talk with people that see me as unequal. I’ve learned through my journey is that to challenge perspectives I must assert myself as an equal in the eyes of the receiver, and I would do this by treating whomever I talk to with respect, dignity, and above all see them as my equal regardless of who they are. I’m very aware that circumstances brought us to together, but our previous circumstances may be so wildly different that it would be hard to understand each other. The trick is to learn from each other. Sit in a point of receiving as well as giving.
So, it has posed quite a question to me over the last few months; this shitstorm we have on the Internet with the population rabbling with each other, and refusing to understand each other. What we can’t do is limit people in any way. One thing the government gets wrong every time is to put heavy taxes on, fine, or make illegal that which it doesn’t agree with. And with that you don’t get a compliant society; you get a society that takes their activities underground. We’ve seen this with the results of Brexit. I was once proud of how tolerant a nation we were, but now Brexit is out in the open it turns out we weren’t very tolerant at all; the racists spoke behind closed doors away from earshot of others. So my choice has been this — remove myself from the whole situation. Stop debating and arguing over the internet and only help and learn from those that want to be helped, and those that I can learn from.
The rest is just a shit waste of my time.
Be well, friends 🙂