Hard truths
May 28, 2024 16:59:18 GMT
Post by Stella on May 28, 2024 16:59:18 GMT
Have you ever stopped to wonder how many people it took just so you could be in a position to be able to read these words? Have you ever wondered about the choices other people made in their lives which have in some way influenced you and your life?
What I want to write about today is the way of the ancestors, or the way of the elders. In the East it is also known as the Dao, if you want to put a Taoist spin on it. In Buddhism they call it the Dharma. You have been born into a family, into the human species, and you are just another genetic permutation of both your ancestry and the human species. Everything about your body, your face, your physical appearance has come from others. Your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your hair, everything. It's just arranged and growing slightly differently and arranged into a new organism from the other people who came before you.
But similarly there were many opportunities for the sabre toothed tiger to fight back, a mother's breast to fail to produce milk, a midwife to get it wrong during labour. But far more importantly there were many opportunities when someone had their ducks in a row, had their eye on the ball, when someone knew exactly what to do, and also when someone was faced with a choice and understood that the choice was clear. You are who you are and you are here because of millions of choices many people have made in a long complex process which has resulted in you being exactly where you are now.
Some people believe - and I learned this off some employability course from someone trying to promote the social media platform LinkedIn some time ago - that if you were to follow a friend of a friend six times you could access through direct social interaction most people in your country. Given the fact that the choices we make impact not just us but other people, and if there is something like a chain reaction, I wonder how many different people get caught up in that chain reaction from a choice that you or I make.
read more
What I want to write about today is the way of the ancestors, or the way of the elders. In the East it is also known as the Dao, if you want to put a Taoist spin on it. In Buddhism they call it the Dharma. You have been born into a family, into the human species, and you are just another genetic permutation of both your ancestry and the human species. Everything about your body, your face, your physical appearance has come from others. Your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your hair, everything. It's just arranged and growing slightly differently and arranged into a new organism from the other people who came before you.
But similarly there were many opportunities for the sabre toothed tiger to fight back, a mother's breast to fail to produce milk, a midwife to get it wrong during labour. But far more importantly there were many opportunities when someone had their ducks in a row, had their eye on the ball, when someone knew exactly what to do, and also when someone was faced with a choice and understood that the choice was clear. You are who you are and you are here because of millions of choices many people have made in a long complex process which has resulted in you being exactly where you are now.
Some people believe - and I learned this off some employability course from someone trying to promote the social media platform LinkedIn some time ago - that if you were to follow a friend of a friend six times you could access through direct social interaction most people in your country. Given the fact that the choices we make impact not just us but other people, and if there is something like a chain reaction, I wonder how many different people get caught up in that chain reaction from a choice that you or I make.
read more