I haven’t been able to get the notion of health out of my mind this week… I guess I’m still riding the wave of my thoughts from the week prior but I seem to mentally wander into the idea of ‘social health’ every time I slow down a bit and am left with my thoughts. I have been thinking about how our community and the people we surround ourselves with to fill our days is such a crucially important component to our overall health. The more I read about longevity (which I have become mildly obsessed with)… the more connection to others is brought into the spotlight as one of the main indicators of long term holistic well being. Then I start to think about the current state of this country and the way in which surrounding ourselves with people that look like us and sound like us and were born where we were born is rapidly becoming priority number one for our communities. And this is rather alarming… and pretty ‘unhealthy’… if I am being honest.
Now… I currently do not have the pleasure of actually living out there in the real world and experiencing life and community first hand. But from everything that I am “seeing” and hearing from my vantage point… the different flavors that individuals bring to the communal “table” of life seem to be being unceremoniously eradicated at light speed. Leaving us all sitting around the table eating vanilla ice cream and commiserating with each other about how wonderful this vanilla ice cream tastes to our vanilla palettes. And… if this is actually the case…. that is incredibly sad for not only us but for our younger generation that is growing up in a society where different or unique or “other” is labeled as bad. We do not grow or advance by experiencing the same thing as the person next to us. The growth takes place by bringing our own unique experiences to the table and allowing others to join us in these experiences. Teaching and showing and explaining to one another what the other ’30 flavors’ taste like so that we can decide what we actually enjoy through exposure as opposed to making decisions based on the constriction of options. And without growth…. without challenge… without forcing our brains to adapt and expand… we cease to evolve and halting social evolution really dilutes the benefits of socializing all together.
As I was thinking about all of this… I started noticing aspects of life around me that were in direct contradiction to how I feel the real world is functioning ‘out there’. I was walking back to work along the breeze way as the sun was rising to my right over the ocean… thinking (per usual) how grateful I am for the gift of this landscape given my circumstances when I noticed two guys walking toward me. One of them was speaking in a low voice and using sign language to communicate with the guy next to him who was intently concentrating on the man’s unique speech pattern in order to understand what was being said. It struck me as such a beautiful sight. I passed these two and as I continued my way down the walkway for the next quarter mile or so… I heard guys speaking multiple languages… Spanish… English… Armenian… Russian… what I believe to be Korean. I saw guys that looked nothing alike talking to each other… different ages… different races… a Transgender person talking to a straight man. I mean… a complete melting pot of perspectives and experiences… all socializing with one another. Why is it that by taking away our option of social choice by locking us behind these gates together are we able to dissolve the barriers and see each other as humans first and the labels second but we are hell bent on fighting this in the real world?
The community aspect of this horrible place has been such a surprising and uplifting piece of this journey. And by experiencing how mentally ‘healthy’… how positively impactful and beneficial it has been for me to learn from guys behind these walls that come from completely different places and look nothing like the image that I see in the mirror… it hammers the point home that we (as a society) need to swim against the stream that is telling us this type of socialization is harmful. We must embrace our differences and learn how to have discussions with people that may not view things in the same light as we do because once again… this is the only way for us to grow. And when we stop growing… we stop livin’.
As has happened on many occasions over the past few years… through serendipity or self-fulling prophesy or magic… I find myself in situations where I can do nothing but smile and shake my head at the “coincidence” of it all. I open the book that I am currently reading on Friday night and as I turn the very first page that I read… I see a handwritten insert in the book… that has the word… “TRIBE” at the top… it reads…
“We want lovers, friends, recruits, soldiers, and affiliations that support who we are. People, individuals, believe in themselves, want to survive, and on a darwinistic level at least, want to have more, of ourselves.
Initially, this is a visual choice. The where, what, when, and who… to our why.
Upon closer inspection, which is the upfall of the politically correct culture of today, we learn to measure people on the competence of THEIR values that WE most value. When we do this, the politics of gender, race, and slanderous slang take a back seat to the importance of the values we share.
The more we travel, the more we realize how similar our human needs are…
We want to be loved, have a family, community, have something to look forward to. The basic needs are present in all socioeconomic and cultural civilizations. I have seen many tribes in the deserts of Northern Africa who, with nine children and no electricity, had more joy, love, humor, honor, and laughter than the majority of the most materially rich people I’ve ever met.
We have the choice to love, befriend, recruit, call to arms, associate, and support. Who we believe in, and more importantly, who, we believe, believes in us. I think that’s what we all want. To believe in and be believed in.
We all must earn belief in ourselves first, then for each other. Earn it with you, then earn it with me. Then we earn it for we.
Travel and humanity have been my greatest educators. They have helped me understand the common denominator of mankind. Values.
Engage with yourself then engage with the world.
Values Travel.
And sometimes we get a stamp in our passport just by crossing the street.”
I will leave it at that…
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Stay Uniquely yourself… Together.