Thrive

You know those moments, those rare, memorable moments in life, when something is said to you, and it's so profound and so inspiring that you never forget the exact moment you heard it, and the precise message accompanying it?

One such a moment happened to me a few months back. I was sitting in my friends house, getting ready in her sisters room, whilst she was sat on the floor with her legs folded reading me an excerpt from a book. I remember thinking that I would be bored and probably not pay much attention but I couldn't help but feel eerily motionless as the words tumbled out of her mouth one after another. I couldn't help but be paralysed by the reality of what I was hearing, whilst simultaneously feeling shivers travel up and down my spine. It was something I have always known but finally learned that day, and since then my life has never and will never be the same again. So all I want to do today is to share that excerpt and hope that somebody else gains something from it too.

It's funny. People achieves all levels of success and the one thing they constantly remind us is that the most important thing in the world is love. And family. And being there. And watching your kids grow. And building a unit. That is what we die with.  Not our merits or medallions. So why do we work so hard to achieve something we know can't make us happy, and forsake the one thing that we know will? This is how we lose sight of the true purpose of life and get lost in the societally constructed illusion that we always have to be better. Work harder. Be smarter. It's always one more deadline, one more promotion, just one more week, one more month, one more year. Then suddenly, you wake up and time is lost. And so is everyone you ever loved. And you're sitting in your million-dollar apartment wishing you could give up every penny to get back the only thing that could complete you. And ultimately, that is the prize. Love. Wisdom. Sanity. Spirituality. Growth. Consciousness. The Third Metric.

There are no pauses in life. There is no later, after, or some day.

We are forever wanting to be there. But "there is no there there."
There is only here.

There is only now.

--------

Arianna Huffington - Thrive (Excerpt) 

I remember it as if it were yesterday: I was twenty- three years old and I was

on a promotional tour for my first book, The Female Woman, which had become

an unexpected international bestseller. I was sitting in my room in some

anonymous European hotel. The room could have been a beautifully arranged still

life. There were yellow roses on the desk, Swiss chocolates by my bed, and French

champagne on ice. The only noise was the crackling of the ice as it slowly melted

into water. The voice in my head was much louder. “Is that all there is?” Like a

broken record, the question famously posed by Peggy Lee (for those old enough to

remember) kept repeating itself in my brain, robbing me of the joy I had expected

to find in my success. “Is that really all there is?” If this is “living,” then what is

life? Can the goal of life really be just about money and recognition? From a part

of myself, deep inside me— from the part of me that is my mother’s daughter—

came a resounding “No!” It is an answer that turned me gradually but firmly away

from lucrative offers to speak and write again and again on the subject of “the

female woman.” It started me instead on the first step of a long journey.

My journey from that first moment of recognition that I didn’t want to live

my life within the boundaries of what our culture defined as success was hardly a

straight line. At times it was more like a spiral, with a lot of downturns when I

found myself caught up in the very whirlwind that I knew would not lead to the life

I most wanted.

That’s how strong is the pull of the first two metrics, even for someone as

blessed as I was to have a mother who lived a Third Metric life before I knew what

the Third Metric was. That’s why this book is a kind of a homecoming for me.

When I first lived in New York in the eighties, I found myself at lunches and

dinners with people who had achieved the first two metrics of success— money

and power— but who were still looking for something more. Lacking a line of

royalty in America, we have elevated to princely realms the biggest champions of

money and power. Since one gains today’s throne not by fortune of birth but by the

visible markers of success, we dream of the means by which we might be crowned.

Or perhaps it’s the constant expectation, drummed into us from childhood, that no

matter how humble our origins we, too, can achieve the American dream. And the American dream, which has been exported all over the world, is currently defined

as the acquisition of things: houses, cars, boats, jets, and other grown- up toys.

But I believe the second decade of this new century is already very different.

There are, of course, still millions of people who equate success with money and

power— who are determined to never get off that treadmill despite the cost in

terms of their well- being, relationships, and happiness. There are still millions

desperately looking for the next promotion, the next million- dollar payday that

they believe will satisfy their longing to feel better about themselves, or silence

their dissatisfaction. But both in the West and in emerging economies, there are

more people every day who recognize that these are all dead ends— that they are

chasing a broken dream. That we cannot find the answer in our current definition

of success alone because— as Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland— “There is no

there there.”

More and more scientific studies and more and more health statistics are

showing that the way we’ve been leading our lives— what we prioritize and what

we value— is not working. And growing numbers of women— and men— are

refusing to join the list of casualties. Instead, they are reevaluating their lives,

looking to thrive rather than merely succeed based on how the world measures

success.

The latest science proves that increased stress and burnout have huge

consequences for both our personal health and our health care system. Researchers

at Carnegie Mellon found that from 1983 to 2009, there was between a 10 and 30

percent increase in stress levels across all demographic categories. Higher levels of

stress can lead to higher instances of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fully three- quarters

of American health care spending goes toward treating such chronic conditions.

The Benson- Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General

Hospital estimates that 60 to 90 percent of doctor visits are to treat stress- related

conditions.

 The stress we experience impacts our children, too. Indeed, the effects of

stress on children— even in utero— were emphasized in the journal of the

American Academy of Pediatrics. As Nicholas Kristof put it in The New York

Times: “Cues of a hostile or indifferent environment flood an infant, or even a

fetus, with stress hormones like cortisol in ways that can disrupt the body’s

metabolism or the architecture of the brain. The upshot is that children are

sometimes permanently undermined. Even many years later, as adults, they are

more likely to suffer heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other physical ailments.

They are also more likely to struggle in school, have short tempers and tangle with

the law.”

One reason we give for allowing stress to build in our lives is that we don’t

have time to take care of ourselves. We’re too busy chasing a phantom of the

successful life. The difference between what such success looks like and what truly

makes us thrive isn’t always clear as we’re living our lives. But it becomes much

more obvious in the rearview mirror. Have you noticed that when we die, our

eulogies celebrate our lives very differently from the way society defines success?

Eulogies are, in fact, very Third Metric. But while it’s not hard to live a life

that includes the Third Metric, it’s very easy not to. It’s easy to let ourselves get

consumed by our work. It’s easy to allow professional obligations to overwhelm

us, and to forget the things and the people that truly sustain us. It’s easy to let

technology wrap us in a perpetually harried, stressed- out existence. It’s easy, in

effect, to miss the real point of our lives even as we’re living them. Until we’re no

longer alive. A eulogy is often the first formal marking down of what our lives

were about— the foundational document of our legacy. It is how people remember

us and how we live on in the minds and hearts of others. And it is very telling what

we don’t hear in eulogies. We almost never hear things like:

“The crowning achievement of his life was when he made senior vice

president.”

Or:

“He increased market share for his company multiple times during his

tenure.”

Or:

“She never stopped working. She ate lunch at her desk. Every day.”

Or: “He never made it to his kid’s Little League games because he always had to

go over those figures one more time.”

Or:

“While she didn’t have any real friends, she had six hundred Facebook

friends, and she dealt with every email in her in- box every night.”

Or:

“His PowerPoint slides were always meticulously prepared.”

Our eulogies are always about the other stuff: what we gave, how we

connected, how much we meant to our family and friends, small kindnesses,

lifelong passions, and the things that made us laugh.

So why do we spend so much of our limited time on this earth focusing on

all the things our eulogy will never cover?

“Eulogies aren’t résumés,” David Brooks wrote. “They describe the person’s

care, wisdom, truthfulness and courage. They describe the million little moral

judgments that emanate from that inner region.”

And yet we spend so much time and effort and energy on those résumé

entries— entries that lose all significance as soon as our heart stops beating. Even

for those who die with amazing Wikipedia entries, whose lives were synonymous

with accomplishment and achievement, their eulogies focus mostly on what they

did when they weren’t achieving and succeeding. They aren’t bound by our

current, broken definition of success. Look at Steve Jobs, a man whose life, at least

as the public saw it, was about creating things— things that were, yes, amazing and

game changing. But when his sister, Mona Simpson, rose to honor him at his

memorial service, that’s not what she focused on.

Yes, she talked about his work and his work ethic. But mostly she raised

these as manifestations of his passions. “Steve worked at what he loved,” she said.

What really moved him was love. “Love was his supreme virtue,” she said, “his

god of gods.

“When [his son] Reed was born, he began gushing and never stopped. He

was a physical dad, with each of his children. He fretted over Lisa’s boyfriends and

Erin’s travel and skirt lengths and Eve’s safety around the horses she adored.”

And then she added this touching image: “None of us who attended Reed’s

graduation party will ever forget the scene of Reed and Steve slow dancing.”

His sister made abundantly clear in her eulogy that Steve Jobs was a lot

more than just the guy who invented the iPhone. He was a brother and a husband and a father who knew the true value of what technology can so easily distract us

from. Even if you build an iconic product, one that lives on in our lives, what is

foremost in the minds of the people you care about most are the memories you

built in their lives.

In her 1951 novel Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar has the

Roman emperor meditating on his death: “It seems to me as I write this hardly

important to have been emperor.” Thomas Jefferson’s epitaph describes him as

“author of the Declaration of American Independence . . . and father of the

University of Virginia.” There is no mention of his presidency.

The old adage that we should live every day as if it were our last usually

means that we shouldn’t wait until death is imminent to begin prioritizing the

things that really matter. Anyone with a smartphone and a full email in- box knows

that it’s easy to be busy while not being aware that we’re actually living.

A life that embraces the Third Metric is one lived in a way that’s mindful of

our eventual eulogy. “I’m always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy

and I realize I’m listening to it,” joked George Carlin. We may not be able to

witness our own eulogy, but we’re actually writing it all the time, every day. The

question is how much we’re giving the eulogizer to work with.

In the summer of 2013, an obituary of a Seattle woman named Jane Lotter,

who died of cancer at sixty, went viral. The author of the obit was Lotter herself.

“One of the few advantages of dying from Grade 3, Stage IIIC endometrial

cancer, recurrent and metastasized to the liver and abdomen,” she wrote, “is that

you have time to write your own obituary.” After giving a lovely and lively

account of her life, she showed that she lived with the true definition of success in

mind. “My beloved Bob, Tessa, and Riley,” she wrote. “My beloved friends and

family. How precious you all have been to me. Knowing and loving each one of

you was the success story of my life.”

Whether you believe in an afterlife— as I do— or not, by being fully present

in your life and in the lives of those you love, you’re not just writing your own

eulogy; you’re creating a very real version of your afterlife. It’s an invaluable

lesson— one that has much more credence while we have the good fortune of

being healthy and having the energy and freedom to create a life of purpose and

meaning. The good news is that each and every one of us still has time to live up to

the best version of our eulogy. This book is designed to help us move from knowing what to do to actually

doing it. As I know all too well, this is no simple matter. Changing deeply

ingrained habits is especially difficult. And when many of these habits are the

product of deeply ingrained cultural norms, it is even harder. This is the challenge

we face in redefining success. This is the challenge we face in making Third

Metric principles part of our daily lives. This book is about the lessons I’ve learned

and my efforts to embody the Third Metric principles— a process I plan to be

engaged in for the rest of my life. It also brings together the latest data, academic

research, and scientific findings (some of them tucked away in endnotes), which I

hope will convince even the most skeptical reader that the current way we lead our

lives is not working and that there are scientifically proven ways we can live our

lives differently— ways that will have an immediate and measurable impact on our

health and happiness. And, finally, because I want it to be as practical as possible, I

have also included many daily practices, tools, and techniques that are easy to

incorporate into our lives. These three threads are pulled together by one

overarching goal: to reconnect with ourselves, our loved ones, and our

community— in a word, to thrive. 

The Social Substratum: It's not you, it's me.

As human beings, we tend to have a certain perception of ourselves as a homogenous body of people. This perception is generally not inward-facing, 'self-centred', or at least 'self-orientated' beings. We are drunk on the mirage that we are outward facing beings that live for love, passion, happiness, unity and community. But there is a fundamental omission in this stance, that is - not taking in to account the question of what attracts us to those things. This article is for everybody who has ever asked the question "why me" or "what did I do to deserve this?" or who has ever felt in any way that they have been treated wrongly or unjustly by others. There is a skewed reality of the human psyche that, if not correctly understood, could lead to self deprecation through lack of awareness.  The substratum of the social psyche is almost unrecognisable, in stark comparison to it's veneer. 

There is a very definitive point about the gregarious nature of human beings. One which is not commonly or frequently identified. Most people spend their lives believing that "who they are" as a person, how they act and what they do, are the social pinpoints of their popularity. People often misconstrue being liked or disliked by others as a direct reflection of who they are as a person. The truth is, however, that human beings are primordially 'inwards' by nature, meaning that every single one of us gravitates towards the things that make us feel good inside, and away from the things that do the opposite. This gravitational pull towards 'good feelings', is applied directly to all aspects of life - who our friends are, what we do for a living, where we go and what our hobbies and opinions are - i.e. the things that perpetuate and validate ourselves. Most times, however, we will perceive the object of that feeling (i.e. a person or place) as a wholly, self-contained 'good' object, as opposed to the service it provides us for selfish gain. We are subconsciously geared towards that which is pleasing, and away from that which is deemed toxic. 

Born on this premise is the development of how social beings interact with one another. What drives us to and away from the people we associate with is primarily based on our egos. In layman's terms, the things that supplement or impair our egos. Different people are driven by different stimulants: money, power, wealth, good looks, good humour, intelligence, love, and so on and so forth, but the thing about the people who possess these things, and our attraction to them, is that it is not the person with the intelligence and humour that we like, it's the feeling that their intelligence gives us when we engage in a witty debate.  The incredible feeling inside released thorough endorphins when they make us laugh, or even how good it feels inside to see them smile, that we are absolutely intoxicated by. It is our ego saying: "this makes me feel good, so I like it. I want this as often as possible, and if it's denied from me, I want it even harder." It is not us loving them, it is us loving the part of ourselves that they either provide or reinforce.

Not too many nights ago, I was lying in bed, wide awake, at 4am. I was trying to piece together a puzzle in my mind, when it hit me. An epiphany. It could've been one of the greatest discoveries I had made to date. I was trying to understand why certain people feel love for those by whom it is unreciprocated, the times people have felt this for me, the times I have felt it for others and the times it had been mutual, and I hit upon the absolute crest of this phenomenon. I discovered that people fall in love with those who invest interest in them. With those who care to ask them what they think about the colour purple, do they eat spaghetti on tuesdays and why do they like dogs? It seems so simple, yet everyone who I shared this thought with agreed that indeed, it had been accurate for them too. The reason is that people are constantly seeking egoic endorsement and self-ward dividends, they are constantly looking to tell their story and express themselves. Once a person identifies with, or cares to indulge in your story, this is when we mentally orchestrate a pseudo-mutual nexus that is commonly misappropriated as love (*simplified). It is so flattering, and humbling at the same time, for a person to show a genuine, deep-rooted and vested interest in you. Your sense of self becomes legitimised and corroborated through this source of interest, so we forge a bond with said source. We are important for this brief time. Of course we cry love. The source of which has become a self-aggrandising auxiliary device. I then understood why there were times in my life and past, where people had felt a much greater connection with me than I did for them, because I had spent a great body of time heavily invested in these people, while these people did not care to do the same for me, thus, I was unable to identify a mutual bond. 

Friendship is a primary example of the propagation of this inward-'good feeling' that we so direly crave. Friends provide you with love, care, an open ear and an honest tongue. These are all 'services' which perpetually recondition the ego to be bound to said person. Not only is it selfish, it's also selfless and outward facing which inadvertently becomes inwards again. Being there for others, in turn, feels good and fortifies the manacle between two bodies, substantiating ourselves and satisfying the need we have to love others.

There are people we meet who we just 'don't have a good feeling about.' It may be nothing they have said or done, but based on this 'gut feeling' we are deterred from such people. But we are driven by the inbound sensation. Not the external reality. Truthfully, our perception of reality is heavily distorted, and skewed by our sense of self. This is why we often judge people too quickly, before taking deliberate care to know or understand them, because we are deterred by the domestic disservice caused as a byproduct of a person's words or actions. Or simply how they hold themselves. The need to judge or berate said persons is impelled by a feeling of indemnity we arrive at when we fortify ourselves through negating that which is not 'me'. This has no baring on the other, but limits our ability to connect boundlessly. We are incarcerated by our sense of self, and slaves to it's fickle will. 

This is the same principle that evokes social groups cemented by common elements. The rich favour the rich, classes tend to fraternise therein, and ethnic and racial groups are heavily segregated. People with similar interests and intellectual capabilities do not divaricate their social setting. This is because we subconsciously aspire towards that which is, in essence, US. That way, we constantly and consistently reinforce and immortalise our self perception, inadvertently validating ourselves through the company we seek. This is why Rumi says "the beauty you see in me is a reflection of you." Because, truly, what you love in someone else is appeasing to a place in yourself. 

While this may seem like a superficial or shallow perception of humanity, awareness is the very tool that can help save us from self-victimisation in the social environment. We are propelled into a feeling of inadequacy whenever castigated or subject to reproach. Often times, this weighs on our perception of 'who we are'. We question ourselves and our validity. I've seen first hand, people feeling bad about themselves because their opinions or actions were challenged, or others did not agree with them or see their point of view. This is the precise thing that awareness will ultimately nullify. The intertwinement of 'who we are' with 'what people think', since what people think is really who THEY are. Through this, we can learn to become comfortable in our own skin, in knowing that our entire being is not compromised every time somebody disagrees with or dislikes us, but simply that we provide an egoic service that befits some people better than others. Or at least in different ways. And every ego is entirely bespoke. Even the person with the most fascist, misogynistic, racist, myopic and ignorant opinions can find at least one person to agree with them. And what do you bet that they love that person? And gravitate towards them? Even without knowing anything else about them, their past sins and success, or their characteristics. That becomes secondary and almost irrelevant, since their alignment to your opinion becomes primary, and falsely emblematic of their entirety. They feel good about it and so do you. These two parties reinforce and reflect one another, and act as magnets towards each other thusly. This is the very clog in the wheel of social decorum. 

At this point, you have two options. One of them leads to peace and sanity, one of them leads to a perpetual sense of inadequacy and loss of consciousness. 1 - Align yourself with everybody. Agree with whatever people dictate, and surely, you will be 'liked.' Do not challenge what is said, concede to the majority and bite your tongue. 2 - Understand that a persons need for you to agree with them is a reflection of themselves. Not you. Their feelings towards you, which are in either direction predicated on an allegiance with or against them, is a reflection of their feelings towards themselves. A person who does not require validation, will never feel invalidated by you. This allows room for truthfulness and sincerity. 

I was recently talking to a friend who had gone out to a friend of a friend's party. She had come home very upset by the way this person had treated her. She was very hurt by the disregard and belittlement shown towards her. We engaged in some discussion and we both came to the fair conclusion that the way she was treated was not at all based on who she was as a person, since the accused had never met my friend and knew nothing about her, but based on an explicit feeling inside of her self - anger? jealousy? threat? discomfort? unfamiliarity? anything you can name, something that aggravated her ego, and caused my friend to ask the question of why she was 'disliked' by this person, failing to understand that this person did not dislike her, but simply disliked the feeling inside of herself. This is something inbuilt within all of us, and the phenomenon behind most capricious social conflict. But enlightenment and maturity may hopefully teach us not to succumb so easily to our egoic impulses, that we ultimately alienate people because they are not aligned with our sense of self. This will aggrandise the eminence of the ego and cause us to lack humility and develop a superiority complex. This is why celebrities and people of a certain clout tend to develop superiority complexes. They are so often reinforced and agreed with, that their ego's are ennobled and their sense of reality becomes disproportionate and distorted. It then becomes difficult to accept a challenge to this disproportionate sense of self, because it is so widely eulogised. The ego lives in a constant state of self-perpetuating hedonism and glorification. The 'good feeling' is aggrandised and ultimately fully desensitised. Everything good doesn't feel good any more, which ultimately leads to numbness and the loss of aliveness. This is where we hear the saying "too much of a good thing can you kill you." Aligning yourself with that which is outside yourself will ultimately stabilise your centre. This is consciousness. 

Because of our inclination towards the self, we have constructed a life where we are surrounded by people who make us feel good, as opposed to the qualities they posses as a person. We are enslaved by this commitment to the self. Practicing abstinence from that feeling can be extremely enlightening. Conversing with somebody we normally wouldn't converse with, or spending time with somebody who operates dissimilarly to us gives us great foresight. It allows us the ability to see others for who they are, as opposed to the service they provide us. Those flickering moments are extremely beautiful, when one can actually look into somebody's soul and genuinely be fond of it, without it having to serve us any selfish purpose. I believe that is the window to true love. The point at which we step out of ourselves, step out of our self-constructed 'roles', and actually see people for the first time, free of archetypal social constructs, and free of the egos need to correct or override an alien perspective. Everything is not self. Open your mind to that which is the other. When people open up to you, they present to you the looking-glass into their souls. Be humble enough to honour their bid. When we listen without the intention to talk, i mean genuinely listen, when we speak without the intention to appear a certain way. When we surrender our ego, let go of the pretence, allow ourselves to feel belittled or offended, and still have no ill-feeling toward the person who caused it, we dehumanise the ego and allow love to dwell within us. Because love and the ego can not coexist. One will always negate the other. The ego is the opposite to love, since the ego can only put itself first, bound by it's own selfish and whimsical impulses.

This then begs the question, if we are magnetically attracted towards that which makes us feel good, then why are we so inveigled by the people who hurt us? That is a false sense of love, but actually possesses the greatest hold. As most insecurities do. Based on the aforementioned, it would be safe to assume that if something doesn't make us feel 'good', we'd be deterred from it. But, of course, the human psyche is not facile by nature. In opposite sex relationships (and sometimes same-sex), this is where the grey area lies. The ego no longer says "that doesn't feel good, i'll be on my way", it now regresses to an elementary phase of being and says, "why don't I make YOU feel good?" which is perhaps a stronger desire all together, than our own desire to feel good. This is because instinctively, if we aren't making others feel good, we tend to question ourselves. We feel belittled and 'who we are' is undermined. since it is not satisfactory to somebody else, it is no longer satisfactory to ourselves, and thus we berate ourselves and disinherit the self-determined 'good feeling'. The ego then ties an attachment to this object. It is usually a person who has rejected us (and therefore our sense of self). Our egos designated métier is to rectify that, by searching for means to launder itself. That is why we blindly cohere to that person and often times miscalculate this as love. It isn't love. In my (very humble) opinion, true love manifests itself when the need to correct the egos scorn is removed. When there are no games, when the soul is laid bare in front of each other, and it is beautiful and enticing in all it's flaws. Whether it hurts you or heals you. Whether it aligns with your sense of self or not. Because the self is thusly relegated, in favour of something more important.

Ultimately, the way people treat each other is almost always based on the self, and never the 'other.' Therefore, it is detrimental and emotionally damaging for the other to take this as a challenge on who they are, as opposed to understanding the internal and ephemeral nature of social inclination. 

'That which I love is never really you, but always me.'

Sliding Doors

What if this life is pre-designed,

What if we're slaves to fate,

What if that's just a fairy-tale,

And our destiny awaits?

What if there is a single road,

What if there are a few,

What if I grow too hesitant,

and never see them through?

What if I had two options,

But what if I missed the turn?

What if there was an open door,

To which I no longer can return?

What if it lead me to my dreams,

What if it shook me to my core,

What if it woke me up to life,

Silenced my inner war

What if I had in store for me,

Fortune and victory,

What if it took me all the places,

That I will never see?

What if there in my triumph,

I learned that faith in God is real,

What if that made me feel a way,

That I will never feel?

What if we had been married,

What if you'd made me proud?

What if we never found each other,

For all the faces in the crowd

What if there were no arguments,

And we had co-existed,

What if you never let me go,

Because I had resisted…

What if that's where it got twisted...

What if that was my only chance,

What if I let it slip,

What if I never love again,

What if I'm not equipped

What if we bared the ups and downs,

What if i never left,

Though part of my life's purpose found,

What of that which i bereft? 

What if there was another life,

That grew inside of me,

What if he was equal parts of us,

And cute as cute can be?

What if he made the sweetest sounds,

What if he loved to sing,

What if he followed me around,

And tripped over everything?

What if every lazy Sunday,

We'd spend all the day in bed,

What if he couldn't say his R's,

And pronounced them as L's instead

What if he was my turning point,

Who changed the way I see,

What if he taught me how to love,

By living selflessly

What if he'd grown and flown the nest,

What if my heart was torn?

But then again we must remember,

He was never born

What if I made a huge mistake,

What if i'm paying the price,

What if I would've known the cost,

And hadn't rolled the dice

What if i'm made to be right here,

But what if it's not for me,

What if someone else is happy,

In the arms where I should be

What if it gets too much to bare,

To wonder all the time,

If all the things I never did,

Would alter life's design

What if it all is written,

But what if the choice is yours?

What if I missed my moment,

In the blink of sliding doors...

Elica Le Bon

ON: Gender Apartheid

As a woman, it makes sense that there is an intrinsic part of my being that champions female empowerment. I think such is the case for most women, however, i have come to notice there is a certain discrepancy in the understanding of the severity of gender apartheid, be it in its arguably hairsplitting Western form, or in it's most controversial and discernible form e.g the islamic world and 'gendercide' in countries such as India and China. Amongst this, however, there are theses to the contrary, that depict our failure to elucidate the insidious dangers of misandry and gynocentrism, coupled with extremist feminist movements that thwart the reciprocal nature of mutually beneficial gender niceties - arguably instrumental to the protection, safety and prosperity of women. Further, there is an oxymoronic weight to to the cyclic mystery of whether the system oppresses us or whether we are, indeed, the system that oppresses. The waves of feminism, in their idiosyncratic ways have also appeared to both help and hinder our social fabric, so it is no wonder that discourse still remains largely subject to pluralistic dissent. The tenebrious, yet sensitive tone of the dilemma evokes the need to question the veracity behind the myth of gender apartheid. Baring in mind, there is no single, universal truth, and it is subject to moral relativism which largely pertains to the diverse nature of cultural diacritics. 

Before discussing it's key elements, it is necessary to backslide on the evolutionary scale and understand the precursor to the feminist movement(s). There is understandably heavy discord around the topic of whether gender-specific behaviours are inherent or learnt. While Darwinism may not provide answers to gender inequality, it suffices to explain that all animal life is programmed to evolve in a way that befits it's own species (until intelligence surpasses inclination). So this may elicit assumptions on how we initially assumed gender-specific roles. A brief study of ape behaviour can give us enough insight to the rudimentary form of animal interaction, and is surprisingly highly gendered. Males were seen to be more competitive whilst females more cooperative with a stronger utilitarian focus.  Taking care not to administer entirely animal-based rituals to human society, we can appreciate that we are largely 'gendered' before intelligence serves to aggrandise those differences, and that these intrinsic tendencies can not be quelled by conflation.

One of the most largely observed gender-awry cultures is Islam. I started my research into this by exchanging some words with my mother (the source of all good research). She grew up in Iran - a notoriously oppressive post-revolutionary regime that handicaps female industrial germination and boasts a patriarchal tenure. Interestingly, however, amidst my research I had heard some looming rumbles from men who felt indignant to this 'false' testimony of female oppression and felt that, de facto, the opposite was true. So I asked my mother, "do you think gender equality exists in Iran?" (Bare in mind my initial question was 'do you think women are oppressed' to which she responded 'does that mean are they depressed?') but in cognisance of my query, she simply snorted and laughed. "They pretend to be equal but to the men in charge, women are just a piece of furniture. That's all." And in many ways - the evidence is damning. A large body of this falls under the rubric of coercive conduct. The social impositions that are obliged to a woman beyond her will. The most conspicuous of these - the rousari (veil), but this pales in comparison to the acquiesced barbarism that is emblematic of many such societies. The Qu'ran itself exclaims that -Qur'an (2:228) - "and the men are a degree above them [women]" so if the fundamental infrastructure of islamic society is predicated on the notion that women are the subsidiary sex, is it any wonder that the dehumanisation of women in these countries has come to be morally accepted, or at least mitigated? It is not only Islamic countries that exercise coercive conduct upon it's women. Lest we forget the 1 child policy in China that aggressively impedes the propagation of it's own species. It is even more distressing to learn that the law is relaxed if your first child is a girl (undesirable), you are permitted to try again for a boy. Should you not adhere to the family planning laws, it is likely that the expectant will be escorted to a forced abortion as late as 9 months into her pregnancy. The right to life is the most basic of civil rights and elicits an existential weight to the discourse, in that free will is axiomatic and the lack, thereof, defies existence. Forced abortion is akin to homicide, yet this unpalatable legislation is morally dumbed-down to befit an economic strategy.

In India, the situation is startlingly worse. In laymen's terms, girls are simply not deemed as cost effective - they do not provide financial security, instead simply serve to incur costs. The birth of a daughter is considered the expulsion of finances and the influx of hardship. A Telegu saying goes - "rearing a daughter is like watering a neighbours tree." At the time of marriage, a dowry must be secured to the husband's family as a conjugal fund. This is deemed as a financial burden upon the daughters family, and has thus lead to the mass epidemic 'gendercide', in this instance, the mass genocide of females through feticide and infenticide. It is usually done by suffocation, asphyxiation or poisoning of the milk. Not to mention dowry deaths, i.e. the beating, raping and abuse of women in order to extort a higher dowry. Women have essentially become pawns, bartered under patriarchal totality. The result is the utter dehumanisation of women through this shameful trafficking network, and yet still the Indian government turns a notoriously blind eye to the investigation of Dowry deaths, because the marginalization of women in these countries is not only morally admissible, but also ignorantly proliferated. 

The notion of a preferred gender, a higher value on the life of a boy over a girl, is the crest in the patriarchal machine. It is mentality that is the precursor to the consequent social fabric. Education and adjustment of social customs are meagre food for thought in an epidemic that has lingered so stealthily under the radar. I do, however, question a nose-dive into radical feminism, or any form of radicalism for that matter. The feminist solution to most dilemmas is a heavy onus on the man to change. Whilst being rather unilateral in perspective, it is also tackling the symptoms over the cause. Further, in this instance it is often the women killing their own daughters, so attack on male mentality would prove redundant.  What is needed is a passage of institutional and cultural edification that lends itself to the harmonious yin and yang balance of the sexes, securing mutual requisition. This can be achieved only through an adroit egalitarian, secularist movement in the Eastern world. 

                          Image - "India: where a woman is killed every hour for dowry"

Whilst gendercide and the oppression of women in the aforementioned countries are ubiquitously regarded epidemics that can not be contested, there are stealthy rumblings in some Muslim countries, such as Iran, that portray a double-edged sword to what has been channeled in the media as patriarchal oppression - the story of misandry, which is often downplayed if not completely negated, and has resulted in the ossified illustration of men as wife-beating rapists. What's troubling here is the unilateral perspective in widely oppressive regimes such as Iran, where both men and women are prescribed archetypal gender roles, yet only women are sympathised with in feminist testimony. It is often argued that in some ways the system shows preferential treatment to women, who are entitled to 'mehireh' - money paid to the woman, by the man, in the instance of a divorce (if the money can not be paid, the man will go to jail). Sort of like an opposite-sex, opposite-conjugal dowry. While it is true that women may be well looked after in the monetary sense, almost mollycoddled, it once again comes at the price of social autonomy. There is very little she can do without the permission of her husband, and only so far she can excel before being stymied by glass ceilings. As per feminist motif, however, heavy misandry in the media is the tactful response, which serves only to satiate the divide and conquer ambition of the oppressive regime, and has procured a sentiment of dissidence amongst the two sexes who are growing increasingly disenchanted with each other. Oppression and feminism have fused into a hybrid superpower that is eliciting a war between the sexes. 

The ideologies of extremist feminist groups are not only considered to be harmful vis a vis the aforementioned, but also impose dangers on the mentality of men and young boys alike. Men are being emasculated by the idea that being 'manly' is not acceptable in a new-age gender neutral society, with an incessant challenge on his virility. There is growing demoralisation amongst a culture of habitually denigrated men, which can only culminate detrimentally for the social zeitgeist. The focus is no longer on equality but on the faux premise of identicalness. It attempts a centripetal movement of the sexes - a regression to reductionism which essentially distorts the unique and complex phenomena that divide us. It is almost a communism of genders, instead of empowering women to match male-status, we are attenuating men into a median mode of gender-neutrality, where a careful counterbalance of power is deliberated - an ideological technique reminiscent of the Marxist 'Repressive Tolerance', in which the voice of dominant social groups is curtailed in order to remedy institutional oppression. I imagine that soon it will no longer be PC to refer to men and women in separate terms. 

Misandry aside, it is not only the voice of men that is unheard in the foolhardy stampede of feminism. It is also, seemingly, the voice of women. During the Betty Friedan, second wave feminist movement, the state had at one point refused to acknowledge it's existence. It denied the oppression of women because it claimed 2/3rd's of women did not feel they were oppressed. The feminists, in turn, deemed them ignorant and implied an insidious and unconscious oppression. This which may well have been true, depending on how you look at it, however, it's concept surmises a somewhat monistic school of thought.  Women who did not desire burgeoning careers in favour of motherhood complained that their intellectual capacity was challenged by feminists. While the liberating intention of feminism is admirable, It is ultimately shortsighted to assume women as a homogenous group of people. I will forever champion women who crave success and are crippled in a patriarchal order, but in the same breath, i believe the very fabric of feminism should be constructed with a cognisance of the dissenting temperament of women's desires. Some of our impulses are purely hedonistic, while others are propelled by biological instinct (i.e motherhood). Sometimes, biology is lost in the struggle for egalitarianism. 

With that said, whether feminism is doing not enough or too much, what is certain is that we are not living in a state of social equality as is. It would be completely delusional to consider it so. The masses are hoodwinked by a glance at the bottom half of the social pyramid, which in the Western world mimics egalitarianism, however, sometimes one must think laterally to see what is right in front of us. As we travel up the pyramid, multi-ethnic, multi-gender contenders drop like flies. And of course, at the vertex of this pyramid sits the white man. The reality of the situation is that impregnable glass ceilings for non-male, non-white aspirants are initiated at around the half way mark, slowly bleeding into a 3/4 way cut off. I must, in this instance, commend the feminist movement for instigating questions that are finally placing the incalculable, undeserved privileges of the white man under heavy scrutiny. 

All things considered, it is evident that the pervasive oppression of women still persists. The remedy for this, however, does not seem to lie in blind, extremist feminism which serves only to place restrictions on manliness and social conduct - tackling the symptoms over the cause. Just as the toughening of laws usually results in the upsurge of crime, so will the mentality of overwhelming extremism cause more dissidence than it does unity. Legislation does not cure ignorance, education cures ignorance. Rebuffing the man's prerogative to act and speak freely will only serve to dent social morale. What is needed is an equality that is bespoke to meeting our heterogenous needs. This can be achieved via a move towards edification through historical, social and political epistemology of the equality of the sexes without coalescing our beautifully idiosyncratic genders. We are, however, far from the realisation of this almost utopian objective. The bottom line is, as it stands, that one need only take a look around to see that it is a man's world. Ruled by men, built by men, for men.

- Elica Le Bon 

ON: Colourism

"Colourism - prejudice or discrimination based on the relative lightness or darkness of the skin. Generally a phenomenon occurring within one's own ethnic group"

Before we delve into the issue of colourism, or any prejudice experienced against a body of people based on the shade or hue of their skin tone, it is necessary to first discuss the history of how such a preference for a particular shade of skin came to exist. Most, if not all educated people will be familiar with black history. Let it suffice for me to simply say that black people were enslaved for over 200 years, during which point, they were not even considered to be human. Let alone any discussion of beauty. Beauty is an entirely new phenomenon post-enslavement, and the dimensions of this paradoxical beauty have weighed heavily in favour of white supremacy. 

During the 18th and 19th century enslavement period, black female slaves were raped by their masters, producing mixed-race, light skin children. Although not provided the luxurious lifestyle of full 'white breeds', this shade of children were pitted above their dark skinned-relatives, who were quarantined in field labour, while the light skinned slaves were promoted to house slaves. A step above. Eventually, the 'paper bag test' was conducted as a means of identifying an accepted level of 'black.' If you were lighter than the brown paper bag, you passed the test. As well as the 'snow and blow' ideal - if your skin is as white as snow and your hair blows in the wind, you are beautiful by default. Although archaic and hugely fascist, this social pyramid inspired the frameworks of society as we know it today. Although slavery is now 'illegal', there is a type of racism that is still heavily present, heavily toxic and completely inexorable - colourism. The belief in hundreds and thousands of ethnic groups all over the world, including black, asian, and hispanic, that dark skin is inferior to light skin. 

Colourism has its roots embedded deeply in the history of colonisation. Countries annexed by European colonialism were imbued with a false perception of beauty based on an ideal of white supremacy. The stature of the oppressor was considered iconic, for his greatness has allowed widespread annexation, and thus it was taught that a dissimilarity with the coloniser was a dissolution from 'greatness.' Young, impressionable minds were geared towards the appraisal and pursuit of white power. Meaning that, a venture towards "white" appearance was not only considered favourable in the realm of beauty, but would also win you greater opportunities and edge you closer to greatness. Sadly, this ideal lives on unabated. 

In todays society, the contorted idea of beauty in colourism is often advocated within ones own ethnic group. Watching documentaries on the subject, women speak of being told from an early age to "improve the race", meaning not to marry black, and if so, to marry 'light'. The concept of dark skin is marred by European preeminence, so young girls are taught to aspire towards breeding lighter children. Not only is this a bleak desideratum, but beyond inhibiting a future generation of dark skinned children, it is also resulting in severe bouts of low-self esteem leading to self harm and suicide. Children are brought into a world where they are told (inadvertently - by society) that their skin colour is inferior or undesirable, and far from learning to love themselves, generally the optimum outcome of this discrimination is purely self-acceptance and nothing beyond it. Beauty is almost another universe for young people scathed by societal ignorance.   

Lupita Nyong'o speaks openly abour her struggle growing up as a dark-skinned child. She exclaims that in her youth, she would pray to God for fairer skin, and would bargain with him that if he would grant her this one wish, that she would stop stealing sugar cubes. This is heart-wrenching for me to hear, but at the same time I am glad that somebody who has acquired a certain clout in the industry is now speaking openly about the austerity of this issue. It seems there are a generation of young girls (and boys) who have been left to suffer in silence for a lack of public outcry on an issue that has been comfortably embraced worldwide. Children are taught from an early age that all 'greatness' emanates from European or Western civilisation. All the great thinkers, philosophisers, writers and poets hailed from France to Germany, from Shakespeare to Freud to Nietzsche. History has been written to strongly favour European predominance and downplay black eminence. Very little, if anything is widely known about real black history other than their history of enslavement which is pitched to us as the most notable historical occurrence in black history. It is shocking that people are not aware that black history did not begin with slavery. So if young children are taught that the history of their ancestors came from something so volatile and ferociously negative, logic permits them to aspire far from it. What needs to happen is that children, of all races, need to be educated properly. Especially in the dimensions of black history. People in general tend to accept the notion that precolonial-Africans were barbaric with no social inclination until they were 'taught' how to live by the white man (Yes, these words really do come out of peoples mouths, i'm not making this up). But if teachings begin with the representation of black people as slaves and victims of American and European civilisation, then those are the means by which thinking and partiality will prevail. Centuries upon centuries of African King and Queendom have been lost in the muddiness of a reassembled history. We are not taught about the thriving economy of the 14th Century Malian Empire and the intellectual center of Timbuktu. It is important that people are re-educated to appreciate that civilisation was rampant in precolonial-Africa, such to rival or even surpass western civilisation at its time. If children are taught the truth of their ancestors, a deeper sense of cultural acceptance can be awakened, because they will no longer be forever escaping the shackles of slavery but instead be aspiring to the greatness in their own heritage. 

Until people understand the toxicity of promoting a bias towards lighter skin types, we will never be able to sanitise the repercussions. Generations of people are blindly following the same ideal that is inherent to their own community. Because the issue is not refuted, most young children will not find the courage to protest against it in the fears that their voice will be lost, or worse yet, disparaged. Openly humiliated. To change the minds of their peers is deemed too great a challenge, so instead of finding greatness in themselves, they are taught to look for greatness outside of themselves. There is no large-scale champion that exists for black beauty or greatness on this planet. When mothers speak openly of their dismay of having a dark-skinned child, (i've heard this with my own ears) what hope does that child have when their own mother is partisan to white supremacy?

This issue is not exclusive to black communities. Societies, including India and Dubai, where skin colour is heavily dissipated, suffer mass subjugation of dark skinned people - who are affiliated with the lowest cast and can only attain jobs in the lowest ranks of manual labour. Countries such as India still utilise casting systems which pit the 'fairer skinned' people as higher casts and associate them with beauty and intelligence - as seen in every Bollywood movie. The lighter the actress, the more beautiful she is considered, and is even airbrushed further to appear lighter. Fair creams are a huge commodity in these countries, where mass billboards are strategically placed to promote this ideal, even in knowing the medical dangers affiliated with it - namely skin cancer (let alone the ethical dangers.) In this society, unfortunately, darker skinned Indian women will have a harder time reaching these apocryphal utopian heights, since the community pyramid illustrates and consistently reinforces the notion that those with darker skin are affiliated with a lack of education and unintelligence (slave labours). Thus, the system dictates that these people are crippled with glass ceilings that prevent them from fruitful educations and are ultimately forced to seek employment in the lowest rankings. And the vicious cycle is perpetuated, lack of education leads to an affiliation with inferiority, and the perception of inferiority is bred through disabling sufficient education to those with a certain skin colour. The fact that the current social stature of these countries is based on something as farcical as a casting system which should have been obliterated centuries ago is harrowing. Fair creams are still used all over the world. In a world where Caucasian is NOT the dominant skin colour, but is championed as the beauty ideal in universal media. 

What's all the more worrying to me is that the reality of the CURRENT  situation in the world is staggering. I have a friend from London who is currently teaching in India. Needless to say that not a day goes by where she does not experience or witness some sort of segregation based on skin colour, including dark-skinned labourers who maintain the land in scorching weather conditions and are not permitted to dwell in affluent 'light skinned' areas, nor are they even provided basic human rights as labourers. However, aside from that atrocity, one thing she mentioned almost had me in tears. A class of children that she was teaching had arranged themselves in order of their 'casts' or colours before she had arrived. The dark skinned children positioned themselves in the back and the light skinned children sat at the front, so the closer you got to the back, the darker the child and vice versa. What moved me more than anything was the way these children had just accepted, without question, their fate and apparent 'inferiority.' It was nothing to be questioned, it was just their reality. They knew no different.  I have never wanted to get on a plane so much, and have crass, threatening words with the school ministers, as well as just taking the children by the hand and rearranging their seating to present a fair arrangement. But either way, I wonder how much difference that would make to children who will grow up in a society where 'fairness' is espoused regardless. The children who strategically placed themselves at the back of the classroom will presumably find it difficult to find the confidence to excel in education, as they are constantly fighting against the tide in their society, and because of the contorted history we are taught, these children will learn to feel that they are reaching beyond their means by striving for an education and/or success. Dark skinned actresses need to receive a higher fraction of roles in Bollywood movies in order to reshuffle the current perception of beauty and break through the glass ceilings. This has to be openly acted against - The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This problem will not solve itself until society reaches out and solves it conclusively. The only reason dark skinned people are affiliated with manual labour and a lack of education in these countries is because those are the circumstances that are enforced upon them. They are not given the opportunity to thrive beyond those means, and thus they are branded outcasts and inferior in their society. 

The crux of this issue is born through the media. This is two fold. 1 - The constant promotion and reinforcement of the white woman as the pinnacle of beauty. If not entirely white, then the closest thing to white possible, i.e light skinned black women with european hair. 2. The negligence and downcast of the severity and existence of colourism in the media. Where do you see this issue being raised? Because it does not compete with the austerity of a holocaust, minor niceties in the realm of attitude to skin colours are acceptable or at least tolerable. But they are by no means acute - infecting a generation of children with lifelong subjugation and inferiority complexes. Young children suffer from extreme cases of low self esteem and lack of confidence. This prohibits the pursuit of their dreams, due to a belief that the shade of their skin bridles prosperity. Kelly Rowland (former Destiny's Child member/Singer) speaks openly about the issues she grappled with growing up. She professes that she had a hard time embracing the 'chocolatiness' of her skin tone, and experienced extreme levels of colourism in the dominion of the career she sought. It can be argued that Beyonce was at the forefront of the group for being more talented, more ambitious and more driven - which eventually culminated in the success of her solo career. But there is also a dark twist in this parable, perhaps if we did not exist in a society of white supremacy, women of a darker skin tone would find the confidence, 'ambition', and 'drive' to pursue such alpine heights. Even Black-American rappers who promote intense approbation of their black ancestry and speak out openly against racism, feature predominantly light-skinned women as the models and dancers in their music videos. This negates their 'promotion' of anti-racism and muddies the notion of skin tone impartiality.

Lest we forget Beyonce's infamous L'oreal commercial, where she appeared conspicuously lighter than her organic skin tone. Even black women who are 'accepted' in society, who even soar to unparalleled heights of the music and entertainment industry (don't be misled though - they are still not the CEO'S behind or above it) are light-skinned black women. Beyonce, Rihanna, Ciara, Tyra Banks, Mariah Carey, Hale berry, Alicia Keys, need I go on? 

Jay Z raps in 'thats my bitch':

"I mean Marilyn Monroe, she's quite nice but why all the pretty icons always all white? / Put some colored girls in the MoMA /Half these broads ain’t got nothing on Willona / Don’t make me bring Thelma in it /Bring Halle, bring Penélope and Salma in it /

I always have to chuckle when I hear that line, because even in trying to promote black beauty he does a shoddy job. The 'coloured' girls he speaks of are no darker than an 'accepted' shade of brown. Dark-skinned beauty is rarely embraced in the media. Aside from current developments that are empowering young black women like Lupita (this is, of course, few and far between). Overall, the perception of black beauty has not yet been adopted widely enough in the media. Black hair is not embraced. Dark skin is not embraced. Black bodies were not even embraced until Jennifer Lopez made it fashionable to have a big bum (subsequently Kim K.). All things associated with black ancestry were/are thwarted until made acceptable, or even fashionable by the white woman/man. But the outcome (acceptance of specific black features) is not effective enough to reach our desired goal. The fact that something associated with black beauty was not organically embraced and internationally endorsed without white infiltration is unacceptable. Subsequent to the minor endorsement of cultural disparity, what has now grown to be the 'ideal' in society is light-skinned black women with european features, a big bum and 'white' hair. This is a bigoted and FALSE standard of beauty for young black children to aspire towards. Although it is not openly stated, the adverse is frequently and chiefly promoted as the pinnacle of beauty in society.These are unattainable, falsely utopian ideals. They encourage people to believe that success, beauty and power come in 'lighter' packages, hence why skin bleaching is as shamefully common as it is. 

Even removed from media, commodities replicate white supremacy all over the world. Children's dolls are all white, and Barbie, who is considered the absolute pinnacle of beauty - is conspicuously caucasion with blonde hair and blue eyes. Black dolls are uncommon, aside from the standard token black dolls to meagrely satiate (basic) public demand of a particular demographic. But even black barbie has "white" hair and no curves, and her skin is an 'acceptable' or 'favourable' shade of brown. I find it highly odd that in a world where white is not the dominant skin colour, everything that is dominant in the world is white. When i have children, i will make sure that my daughters dolls come in a variety of shades that reflect a realistic microcosm of society. I remember once playing the game where you write a name on someones forehead and they have to guess which celebrity it is. I picked Princess Jasmine for someone. She asked "am I white?" I said "No." This caused her to scratch her head and say "What? I'm a disney princess but i'm not white?" That says just about everything in a nutshell. 

One of the biggest platforms upon which this issue is finding preeminence is on social media websites such as Instagram and Twitter. I might even say that I was blissfully unaware (ignorant) of the severity of shadeism until i witnessed first hand a division on social media between light and dark skinned people. What has now formed all across the internet are 'cliques' that promote light skin as superior, and the ultimate semblance of black beauty.

Her last hashtag says "Hyena looking darkies." What message is this sending to young, impressionable people? In no way should any skin tone be advocated as superior. Let alone to suggest that one shade be jealous of the other. I posted this on my page a while ago. It was a discussion that I had with the original poster, who claimed it was all in jest and vehemently denied any overtones of racism. She claimed that a lot of her family were dark-skinned, and the dark-skinned friends that she has know it was a joke. However, in my post i mention that even if some jokes are made like this on a personal level, to openly promote the superiority of one shade over another has serious and long lasting ramifications that prevent certain skin shades excelling in beauty related industries, since they flood into the professional world, prohibiting employment of dark-skinned actresses, models and entertainers. Granted, I was attacked left, right and centre by her friends, referred to as a 'basic bitch' and sent on my way. Needless to say I did not lose a wink of sleep. It is always important to stand up for what you believe is right, no matter how much fire you come under in the process. 

What is required is a cognitive overhaul of beauty ideals. If children are taught from a young age to 'improve the race' and 'marry light', then at this rate, ignorance will drive out the beautiful kaleidoscope of our skin tones before we outdrive ignorance. 

All in all - this entire notion is appalling, archaic and embarrassing. Firstly, the entire fair cream industry should be abolished on both an ethical and medical account (who thought of that?). It is culpable for two of the worlds biggest fatalities, skin cancer and low self esteem (which can lead to suicide). Secondly, we must reprogram the generally accepted perception of beauty in our society. It is time for a renaissance, a cultural rebirth, an ethical reformat. Thirdly, actively working towards the abolishment of casting systems that disallow equality and justice, as well as basic human rights in societies that encompass inexcusable apartheid. Massive steps must be taken, including essentially restructuring government in a lot of these countries where welfare systems curtail the excelling of darker shades and lower casts, and which lean towards a societal dissipation in rankings of employment based on skin colour. And finally, to consider every shade beautiful, to awaken people to the reality of the situation, to speak openly when we see situations where people are discriminated against based on their skin colour  (even if it is just an instagram 'joke') and to reprogram the perception of 'beauty' in our society. To dismantle from colonial duplicity, that has subjected an entire nation to favour white supremacy, and to reach a stage where we are all equal.

Everybody Has A Bottom Line

When discussing the delicate matter of relationships, be it friendships, family or love, there is always a difficulty in finding that frangible balance between loving each other, and being able to come into discord without crossing an invisible line that each one of us constructs. This line avows our absolute end point to which we will soberly allow ourselves to be treated. Hopefully, if you have the right people in your life, they will never see your bottom line, in which case this is irrelevant. But unfortunately, we do not always attract the right people in our lives. Or, sometimes we do, but they still cross that line, through an infinite number of variables; complacency, taking one for granted, anger, jealousy - the list goes on. However, it is important that one learns, at some point, to establish a line so firm, a line so palpably impregnable, that no type of love, addiction, affection, obligation or devotion can withstand the abasement of said line. Nothing, and nobody is worth the compromise of your own self respect. It's easily said on paper, but the reason why many people find it difficult to cull judiciously, is that we often delude ourselves. We create an invisible line but then continue to move the goal post further and further back to keep certain people in our lives. Purely because we just can not bare to live without them. But anybody who has experienced this will tell you, point blank, that ultimately it just isn't worth it. You can fight to keep somebody there, but if its at your own expense, then ultimately what you're gaining from somebody else's presence is what you are missing in yourself. Security. Reassurance. A need to fill a void. And without our own emotional security you do not have the strength to retain love in any capacity. 

It is absolutely imperative that you reach a point some day in your life, that you categorically do not care what other people think about you, because you, and the people who matter, know exactly who you are. In doing this, you will let go of the need to keep everybody happy by depicting a certain type of personality or image, be it coming across as forgiving, humble or kind. You will then have the strength to walk away from a situation that disservices you, without a second thought about how it might be perceived by the recipient (or others). Ultimately, it does not matter how you "look" by choosing to respect yourself. It does not matter if you have 1000 friends or 0 out of it, the only thing that matters is that one can maintain and sustain an admissible level of respect for oneself, by any means possible. Because if you do not have that, you have absolutely nothing. All that you have is your soul. Guard it. In doing so, you can attain that inner strength, clarity and honour, that will ensure there will be nothing and nobody who can impeach upon that. It is better to be alone than to surround yourself with people that do not hold your presence in their lives in any type of regard.

At this point, i've heard one too many stories of people telling me about other people that have treated them atrociously, that have demonstrated excess levels of insolence and/or flippancy, and overall made a mockery of their kindness. I ask them, "why don't you cut this person out of your life?" most of the time, i can see that their reason for not doing so is not to appear a certain type of way. I don't want to appear like the "stubborn one" or the "bad one" or the "negative one." I want to "look good" out of this situation. I want to be the "bigger person." The 'bigger person' is a trick your ego is playing on you to allow you to believe you are prospering in a negative environment. It isn't possible. A lot of the time, people's reasons are as peripheral as simply not wanting to look like someone who doesn't have friends. Your integrity holds more stature than any number of friends can boast. Trying to look good in a situation where you are being disrespected is like trying to nourish your hair by bleaching it. It's a complete contradiction. What's more, you are undermining your integrity, because if you know that the right thing to do is to expel a person from your life, but you are retaining them based on an facade or formality, you are not cleaving to your intuition. 

Finding your "bottom line" and adhering to it by all means necessary is, in my opinion, one of the ultimate signs of maturity and tenacity. It is the dissolution from the ego. The ego is something that is bestowed to us from early childhood. It is initially manifested as the libido. We deflect our desires on to animate and inanimate objects, and the loss of these things result in pain and turmoil. Until we can find the next object to deflect our desires upon. Unfortunately, our egos are not forfeited in adulthood, and there is no expiration date on it. WE have to make the choice to actively expire it. The point at which you find your "bottom line", which can not be impugned by a single soul, and you MAINTAIN the strict quarantine of that region, this is when, in my opinion, one reaches emotional maturity - free of the ego. Because the ego tells us that we must be loved and we must be needed and accepted by society, and our emotions and love must be reciprocated and conducive to societal archetypes, otherwise we don't feel good. The ego is lying, you don't need love and emotion from a person that is disrespecting you. Once you can shut the ego up, not care about approbative opinions from everyone you meet, you can begin the culling process and the maintenance of your own space, your own person and your own self respect. If you can respect yourself, you will be respected by everybody. You may not have too many people in your life that you can call your "best friends", but that in itself is an unsustainable lifestyle. In the short term, it is difficult to put your foot down at times, but in the long run, you would be doing yourself a grave disservice if you didn't. 

Not only must you have a bottom line, you must also make sure people are AWARE of your bottom line. You can not spend your life letting people leisurely walk all over you, then suddenly chuck up your deuces in a blaze of glory. It does not work like that. If you want respect, you must also give it. It is vital that you make your bottom line clear from the get go. "This is what I am absolutely NOT willing to tolerate." And that's that. If a person respects you, they will respect your line. But it is certainly unfair to chastise a person for crossing your line if you have never made it clear to them exactly where that line inheres. It is also a regression to infancy. A child can not make clear what hurts him/or her, they can only act out when hurt. If you let a person you love maltreat you for so long, and then abruptly discard them, that means you have started in pain, you have travelled in pain and you have adjourned in pain. As though you never cared to honour yourself with a happy medium. When a friendship or love affair ends, it is in your best interest to be able to look back without regrets, and doing so constitutes making sure you have elucidated what you consider to be acceptable treatment. It's when you have made your boundaries clear, and given a person multiple opportunities for redemption and they continue to disrespect you, then you just have to call it a day. You can not save a person and you can not change a person. When the time is right for them to grow, they will do so accordingly. That is not something anybody else can enforce, be it with words or actions. Antecedent to their rehabilitation, it is ultimately time to step away from that person. Sometimes, words do not suffice. Sometimes, the best way a person can learn a life lesson is by losing something that they love. Lord knows, it is a wake up call. 

There are people who may want to test your strength of character, and thus burgeon a desire to cavort in the immediacy of your threshold. This is the time to raise the amber light. It's like a game of hot and cold. You can't let people live in the antarctic forever, speak facetiously of the 'warm areas' they're approaching, and then suddenly set them alight. Be clear on your principles. There are also times when people will accidentally cross your line. How does one react in that scenario? Well, I personally believe that this is arbitrary and is predicated on the type of character you possess. Personally, i am a strong advocate of forgiveness. I believe it is a mark of strength, being secure  in yourself and the abolition of your ego, enough that you can receive a pounding and bounce back carefree. If you cling onto your ego too tightly, you will harbour antipathy and exhibit pessimism to anybody or anything that hurts you or bruises your callow ego. So, personally, i would give somebody a second chance for 'accidentally' crossing my line. But after that, there would be no chances. You can only give people so many chances, until it reaches a point that you're sacrificing your own self-respect. Everybody has a bottom line.

Find your circle, protect it and keep it. If it boils down to your circle being 1 person, then so be it. Too many people tolerate bullshit to stay popular. That kind of lifestyle will ultimately scorn you through and through. But i think it's necessary to mention that i do not advocate removing a person from your life as a common or 'go-to' tactic. I, of course, only refer to severe cases of maltreatment. Remember that the bottom line is the BOTTOM line. Not the mean line, or the median line, or the average of all accounts line. In general cases, i always support and promote the practice of cordiality. Everybody makes mistakes. We are only human, after all. I definitely do not encourage one to be too precious, in that no criticism can be received without dramatic overturn. That can be construed as bratty and egotistical behaviour. Again, the importance lies in finding exactly where your personal line is located. Do not accuse everybody of crossing it, who tread 10 feet above it.

I often see a lot of 'line-crossing' occur in people trying to forge a respect that isn't there. A woman should never have to convince or 'ensure' that her partner doesn't cheat on her. And vice versa. They shouldn't WANT to cheat on you, without you having to say a word or forming trust issues and probing questions. If the desire to cheat is there, then there is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction. If you are not enough, then there is simply nothing more to add apart from the fact that it is time to move on. You can not 'become' enough for somebody through coercion or pretence. You should be 'enough' for anybody who has the desire to claim you. You can avouch your own reverence in these dimensions without having to force or imply the manner in which you deserve to be treated. You've elucidated your bottom line, after which, it is not your duty to consistently reinforce its juxtaposition. 

It's important to add that disrespect is not only what people do TO you, it's also what people do not do FOR you. And i'm not encouraging one to develop a sense of entitlement here (see earlier blog), I just mean that there is reciprocity in every type of relationship, and negligence is one of the biggest forms of disrespect and the cause of many break ups. Disrespect can be considered in many forms, but ultimately it boils down to this, if you are doing or giving somebody something that they are not returning - you are being disrespected. Point blank. You have no obligations to engage in something which exhibits no reciprocity or amasses no mutual benefits. It is easy to take people for granted, and if you do, you are violating their personal boundaries. They may not yet have developed a keen sense of their bottom line, because they are blinded by love or a sense of obligation, or simply that they are just growing up. But when the rose tinted glasses wear off (which they always do) you have to pray there is something concrete behind the smoke screen, because people might tolerate disregard for a matter of time, but EVERYBODY has a breaking point. 

It is easy to keep forgiving a person for the same mistakes through complacency. It is always difficult to break a cycle that has formed a habit. An addictive habit. But at some point, you have to respect yourself enough to draw that line. Unwaveringly. Sometimes enough is enough, and you know, deep down, when you've had enough. 

Everybody has a bottom line. Decide where it lies, and never let a single person impeach on that.