Altering Differences

thI’m highly contemplating changing the name of this blog. It is more becoming an outlet for me to share the lessons that life is constantly teaching me. I willingly admit to not knowing everything, but I think in beginning this blog I thought I knew a lot more than I truly did. I didn’t think I was wise by any stretch of the imagination, but I was vain enough to be content in my knowledge and to stop seeking wisdom. My mind and heart are undergoing a huge change. I am hungering for more these days. More than knowledge, and more than things. I am hungering for wisdom and experiences. I don’t want to say that this has anything to do with me. It does not. I know that it is a tug on my heart from God. It is something that is hard to explain. I’m trying to reach a place where I am content with myself, to be happy with who I am, yet still earnestly seek more and to know that I am not a finished product until I am dead. I think that is more than likely the most articulate way I have ever expressed that. So I’ll be thinking about a new name for this blog, something that incorporates the fact that it still maintains its original qualities of being about my aspirations and little anomalies that I find in my world, but also implying that I am learning about so much that is outside of my world.
With that being said, I suppose that I should get to the lesson I intended to convey. First I must start out by saying that the reason I talk about love and/or dating so much is that I find it to be the thing to which I most relate. True I haven’t had very many relationships, and none that I would consider as being successful or healthy, it is still what is in my heart and how I can apply a lesson I have learned. Also it is something that I think many people can understand or possibly relate to. I may have claimed to not know a lot of things at the beginning of this particular blog, but there is one thing that I have come to know. It is that people desire love and acceptance. We thrive upon it. We are constantly asking our environments for permission to do things, for permission to act or dress a certain way and to still be accepted. It’s called social norms, and we box ourselves in to subscribe to these norms. So that is one thing I do know. I have seen it, you have seen it whether or not you have come to realize it or some version of it in your own life, and one day your kids will come to experience it too. Now that I have stated that I can begin to forward my most recent life lesson, an epiphany if you will.
Any who knows me will know that I have always had apprehension when it comes to the thought of me dating an African American man. [I don’t want to be politically incorrect, because this may already be a politically incorrect thing to discuss. I hate being offended, so therefore I try not to offend. It’s a little thing I like to call being the change, everyone should try it.] I’ve always said that noticing a difference in skin color is not racist, and I still stick to that notion, but now there is more to it. Noticing a difference in skin color is not racist when you are noticing it as a celebration of differences. I will admit that skin color was not the only thing that was causing me delay in the subject. It also had a lot to do with certain stereotypes that come along with people of African American descent, like their love of nothing but music that exploits women as nothing but slaves to perverse sexual desires, which is my opinion of "thug" music. I know that I was wrong in condemning a whole group of people to this, and for that I will say I am sorry. I am not fully over that way of thinking yet, it is something that is going to take a while for me to override. It is completely my own doing that I thought like this, but our society does not help to us to think any differently. I have recently come upon the revelation though that people are not a they, they are a we. We are all human beings.
Let’s put it like this… think or your favorite hiding spot as a child. A place you went to to escape something, it can be whatever. Now think of what this place meant to you, what you felt as you were there. Describe it in full detail to yourself. Ok got this picture in your head? Good, keep it there. Ok now imagine yourself walking around some busy place, it can be wherever; a theme park, New York City, your local mall… Now imagine that every single person in that crowded area, no matter what age they are or what kind of clothing they are wearing or what color their skin is, has their own hiding space. Doesn’t that make you curious as to what theirs is? Every single person is exactly that, a person. I can’t help but use the word they here, but they each are an unique individual that should be celebrated. When we stop looking past outward differences and we realize that people are just people, that there is no they, that there is just one giant collective we, we can start to tear down boundaries and inhibitions. We should stop noticing the differences in the similarities everyone shares and start rejoicing in the similarities themselves. Now I’m not saying that I will ever condone, in any matter, music that I’ve already shared my beliefs on, and I don’t encourage anyone to listen to it, least of all a potential mate, but I’ll expand my boundaries a bit and embrace “music” [something with a similar beat that is uplifting rather than degrading to both subject matter and listener] and someone who can expand their boundaries and listen to some post grunge garage bands with me.