I was walking through my garage and thinking about how I like to see my motor home as a morphing spaceship in my personal fantasies. However, I usually don't share these with others unless I'm writing.
I sort of laughed to myself when I thought about this and it took me back to Fall 1966 in Glendale College in california. One of my classes at age 18 was Social Science which at that time really wasn't taught much in High School. I had just come from my senior year in a church school in a private High School in Santa Fe, New Mexico while my parents waited for me to return to their home in Glendale, California. Though it had been very good for me to get away from my parents for a year in private school it had further ingrained me into the church's way of thinking in regard to evolution and abortion. The church I was raised in didn't believe in either of these things.
Though my father had taught me through debating me starting at age 8 to be a free and experimental thinker and to be pragmatic and objective about every situation I encountered physically or mentally I was vulnerable at Glendale College to a Social Science class which taught Evolution and Darwin. To make matters worse I was always telepathic and so immediately realized that 80% of the students in this class also firmly believed in both evolution and Darwin. So at this point I was horrified on multiple levels and this experience so rocked my worldview that I dropped out of college because of my inability to cope with this paradox.
It took me until I was about 20 or 21 to resolve this conflict. I finally in a more mature way decided that ideas were much like languages of thought. I decided there was no one language of thought that was the correct or only one. This adult decision has helped me to survive until age 60 which I am now. It has allowed me to feel comfortable meeting people of all philosophies and religions that I have talked to traveling worldwide as well as meeting people of diverse cultures here in the United States.
So freaking out my first year of college and taking a year off actually made me a more cultured and worldly and diplomatic person who became capable in an adult way of talking to people who believed almost anything without freaking out internally or externally. I may or may not agree with them but I could handle it either way.
However, many many people worldwide never come to this point because they didn't grow up in the United States or Europe or go to a public college in these areas. Education was the primary reason I had to grow and go beyond my parents belief system in order to survive in the larger world we live in. I consider suffering until I could learn to add onto my belief system each system like one learns languages. Not necessarily believing any of these systems but at least being able to be conversant with all kinds of people and being kind and useful both to them and creating them as useful to me and my family.
Learning to think like an educated diplomat will save your life in multiple situations if you are exposed to diverse cultures and peoples. Otherwise you just better not travel if you aren't open to dealing with diverse perspectives. If you can't deal with other points of view you should stay home so you can stay alive.
What I'm mostly saying is that in order to travel the world safely you must first find out what is happening where you are thinking about going to. Otherwise, almost anything can and will happen to you there. So if you want to travel the world, for God's sake, do some research so you can survive it and tell your kids and Grand kids about it!
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