When should we let go of the past

Recently I have been watching a doco series on the history of pleasure items such as sugar and opium.  The history of these items highlight for me two things.  First of all, that those of British descent should feel some shame for the horrible things their ancestors did.  And secondly, what do you do when your people have been over thrown?

The British (and probably a number of other European cultures such as the French and Spanish for example) have a lot to answer for in their rape of many many cultures in this world.  The two I have been familiar with, the Maori and Aborigines, suffered greatly at the hands of Europeans who stripped them of their culture, their faith and their lands for their own gains.  This was of course done because they considered that only one way of life was correct, the British, Christian way.  It was done as the best of intentions, but it cost these people massively.  Other cultures I can think of are the Indians of North America, Inuit, Indians and so on and so on.

I feel for the Chinese people who were basically feed opium by the British Empire to feed their need for tea. Thousands suffered because simply greed won.  How many from Africa suffered across the world because of slavery?  Sugar, something we think of as just another every day item, is built on the sweat of slaves.  We wouldn't have it but for slavery.

While there is a long long list of horrible acts in our past, does it define us now?  I cannot think that it does.  In a lot of ways those who have white skin are now carrying this weight.  Most of us will come from working class blood lines which didn't really have much say in the grand scheme of things.  Our ancestors were no more able to change the world than most of us are able to today.  But because of the horrible decisions of a select few in the pursuit of we are inadvertently tarred with that same brush.

None of us can change the past.  Not one of us.  Don't you think that if we could we would go back and stop slavery or lessen the impact of opium on the families it destroyed.  Or return children to their families when they were ripped away to go into re-education facilities.  I don't think there are many good natured people now that wouldn't want to change some of the more horrible and terrible moments in history.

Yet so many still look back to these moments and define themselves by these moments.

I have lived in two countries at war with their pasts.  I have lived in these countries and seen the struggle that the native people have been through to wrestle some of their lands back.  But there comes a time when you have to accept that at the end of the day what those countries were before the arrival of Europeans no longer exists.  No matter how much you fight, you will never have that time again.

I'm sure that statement will anger a lot of people.  But at the end of the day many countries are far beyond the point of no return.  Take America.  How would you tell say 320 million people (I'm taking a rough guess here) that they have to relocate ... go back home .... because the Native Americans want their land back.  Or Australia.  Or New Zealand.  About 20% of New Zealand's population is now Asian.  And in Australia there is big Asian communities, for example.

There are people like myself who's family has lived in one of the above countries for six generations now.  Six.  Its been that long since my ancestors lived in Europe.  I don't even think of myself as being European because I don't really have a connection any more to that land.  My Grandfather has books that list members of my family in the history of the country I now call home.  I think I have a right to call myself a native because I am now so far removed from my European ancestors, with my own history and culture, that said country is my home just as much as anyone else's.

However the real point I am trying to make here is not that I'm some entitled white supremacist.   Far from it.  I have making the point that even though my ancestors made mistakes I shouldn't be held responsible for those mistakes.  I cannot change which country I was born in any more than any other person can.

So I ask this, perhaps it is time to stop drawing a line in the sand.  The you and me mentality.  And stop looking back.  Start looking forward.  The countries that exists before do not exist now.  They cannot exist ever again.  No one is asking that we forget the horror of our pasts, but I instead say we should perhaps look to the future.  As one.  With us all working together as one then we can build a new country that has its own future, its own history, its own culture.

We are often told looking back does no one any good.  I think looking back is stopping the cultural evolution that wants to happen in so many places around the world today.  I just pray that this is understood before the tensions snap and we see new horrors to add to the old ones.

The lie that is The Meaning Of Life

As I sit alone tonight at home, my house empty now that my husband is at work on his night shift, I find my mind thinking about the meaning of life.

Most would find comfort in religion.  God put me here for a reason therefore I can take comfort in knowing that I have a purpose from a higher power.  If you think about all the planets, stars, galaxies that exist in our universe, even if there is a higher power I would ask one to consider how a singular entity would have time to worry about a planet that essentially amounts to an electron on the branch of an apple tree. I believe in a higher power but I struggle to see how that higher power does anything other than watch his ants in their ant colony.

I will take Richard Dawkin's view that when you remove religion you have to find your own meaning in life.  But when you are approaching thirty, have no job and relatively little to show for you life other than making it to marriage without a couple of kids hanging off your legs it starts to get very hard to find a meaning that would make you happy.

There is always the approach that the marketing companies would have you take and that you are here to consume and make someone else that little bit richer.  If I am to believe everything they say then I should go and buy the latest computer, MP3 player, TV, gaming system etc. and that should fill the void that having a meaning to life would normally fill.  Yet as I sit surrounded by these items I feel a little bit more empty because I know these items take me a little bit further away from the toil that is supporting myself, growing my own food and supporting my own life.  In essence a true bond with the land that I think I deep down desire.  This pitch is disposable (if something breaks why not buy another one?) and therefore the void in my heart grows just a little bit more with each item I buy.

I have always felt that people of generations past didn't feel depressed because they were so busy working to stay alive there wasn't time to stop and think about life.  Not when you have to grow a years worth of food in a couple of months, make sure you have enough wood for the fire during winter and care for the animals that made your life easier.  Take that away and the brain now has to entertain itself.  I sometimes fail to see how that can be a good thing.

Well I guess I could look to family.  But when you live in different country to your family it seems hard to find that as an excuse for the meaning of life.  And anyway, why should I put faith in another human to keep me on this planet?  I could have my own child but then would I perhaps become one of those mums who never lets their kid do anything and lives their dreams through their child, the dreams they wish their own parents had let them live.  There is so much I wish I could do now but I know that my chance for it is long past because my adult body could not relearn the necessary flexibility or strength needed.

I envy my husband.  He knows his role in life.  His only real desire is to be a good husband.  I know this is his heart.  He would be happy to live a nice simple life, in the same house, with the same friends, and just take pride in raising a couple of children.  A life with no real goals but its a life he would be content with.  He has no real aspirations of greatness, just a need to provide for a family and to be a father.  My husband is not an unintelligent man, he is just a man who wants and needs a simple life.  So I envy that he needs so little to be happy.

There is also the evolutionary meaning of life.  This is perhaps the most depressing one, but probably the most truthful one.  There is no meaning other than to reproduce and pass my genes on to another generation, there by perhaps strengthening the genetics of the human race as a whole.  Why have life if there is no meaning for it?  I guess life is just a random chance event that has now occurred and exists on this planet we call home.

So if life is nothing more than dumb luck and here for no special reason, I understand why so many cling to the illusion of a god.  The alternative is crushingly depressing.

The human race will kill itself

Over the last few weeks we have witnessed a number of mass shootings in America.  And even though a number of young lives have been lost, it seems that the American love affair with guns will not end.  We have probably also seen circulated across Facebook or what ever social media you follow statistics showing how many people die in America due to guns compared with other countries.  America has a massively disproportionate death rate from guns than even probably a lot of war torn countries.

Yet there is still a large movement of the population in America that will only relinquish their guns when said gun is pried from their cold dead hands.  They would rather buy a bullet proof jacket for their child than see gun control tightened.  They would rather a teacher carry a gun, metal detectors in schools, security guards, GPS chips in the ID tags of their children and so on than have legislation that makes it harder to own a gun.  Or safer, what ever way you want to look at it.

Where does it end?  What does this teach children?  To be afraid of everyone?  To fear that your life will be ended when ever someone feels like it?  Kind of feels like going to church every Sunday and, in the words of Homer Simpson, listen to how your going to hell for 45 mins.  This mentality can only breed fear and guilt.

I have lived in two countries with strict gun control laws.  The chances of dying in these countries from an accident with a gun is very low.  In fact in Australia, where I currently call home, when a violent mass shooting occurred, which I would liken to the horrible tragedy that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the response of government and the populace was very different.  The government brought in much tougher legislation regarding access to guns and the populace breathed a sigh of relief when such measures were brought in.  In fact the populace of Australia all but demanded it.  Because the lives of the populace were more important than the right to own a gun.

The right to defend one's self is not being argued here.  I know many ways to defend myself without the need for a gun.  In fact I know a number of very lethal ways to defend myself with my hands alone, ways that don't actually require a lot of force if you hit the right spot on an attacker's body.  What I am attempting to discuss is the mentality of a section of American society that would so rabidly oppose the control of guns, at the detriment of its society, they might actually get their way.

I have respect for President Obama.  He has attempted to give the Americans what they have needed.  Health care for instance.  Instead of putting it in the hands of people who merely want to make money from suffering (if you charge a profit for health care then yes you are making a profit from some of the weakest and vulnerable members of society) he has attempted to wrestle it back into government control so everyone can have access to medical treatment.  (Next time you watch an American talk show and see some kid getting some new radical treatment for cancer I would ask you to consider the financial situation of that family.  I don't think I have seen one "poor" family on those shows and usually they are shown in rather well off housing.  I think if it was someone below the poverty line then in all likelihood that child would be dead.)

Obama has given America what it needed and of course like a spoilt brat it threw a hissy fit and threw it back in his face because it wasn't shiny.  Now poor Obama has to be like a parent weaning their child off their dummy (or binky or what ever you want to call it).  He has to wean an nation obsessed with instruments of death off of them.  Its like making a crack addict give up crack.  Its going to be a long and difficult process.  But in doing so he might actually earn his Nobel prize for peace, by actually bringing a measure of peace to his own country.

But I don't blame Americans for their love of guns.  If you watch Discovery Channel there is a large number of shows dedicated to making guns look awesome.  One show is about a family who makes custom weapons for a living.  It makes me sad to think that this show exists.  Guns only do one thing.  They kill people or animals.  They kill.  They take life.  And yet there is a show that glorifies making them and firing them.  National Geographic isn't so bad but they aren't far behind Discovery Channel.  And at least the History Channel attempts to put some of the horror of war into its long list of war documentaries.  World War II should not be forgotten for its horrible atrocities but should not be used to encourage gun violence.

I think it is sad that the most powerful nation on Earth is a nation that would rather defend its weapons than its children.  To argue that children should be wearing bullet proof vests instead of making gun access more controlled seems like an illogical argument   Almost like a child molester saying that a five year old girl asked to be raped.  Its like arguing with a mad man.  In my home town there is a gun club and many people attend and use the weapons very responsibly.

So by the argument above, those who argue against gun legislation are saying that they would rather have a gun in the hands of a mad man than have to go through a few checks to make the world a bit safer for their children.  In the two countries I have lived in, you have to go through a number of steps to own a gun, steps that are repeated when your licence expires, and both countries have few murders, and even fewer with guns.  There is almost no gun violence and guns are seldom if ever see or needed.

So ultimately what is it that America is really afraid of?  Clearly other countries with tight gun control show that there is no bogey man under the bed.  They show that society won't crumble into a festering wound of humanity.  Is having your toys really worth the lives of innocent children?  Does America really rank a gun worth more than a child?  It would seem if the gun lobbies win then that is how America truly thinks.

Denial is a comforting state

Christmas is always a both wonderful and sad time of year.  We have wonder in the season, but we also are around our family and it is then that we might see things we do not want too.

For the first time in three years I spent Christmas with my family.  And I came to the conclusion that each of my family members is in denial about an aspect of their lives.  My mother, for instance, sees my father's long list of selfish choices but instead of saying "enough is enough" and doing what is necessary to look after herself, she continues on in a dark depression.  One sister is in denial about how dangerous and toxic the father of her son can be in her life.  The other is in denial about the isolation her fiancée has her in.  My brother is in denial about the truth of his fiancée.

I observed all the dynamics in my family, the push and pull of each family member on the other, the fake smiles, the denial.  I came to two conclusions.  The first being that even with all my issues surrounding my Asperger's Syndrome I am actually the least mentally messed up in my family.  The second, living with what you know, no matter how destructive it is on yourself or those around you, seems to be a more favourable to live in a horrible situation than to leave it.

I know first hand about this.  I lived for four years in the grips of a mentally abusive relationship.  My only serious boyfriend prior to my husband was a manipulative man who only cared for his own desires.  I knew the instant I got involved with him the relationship was doomed but it took four years before I had the strength to toss him out of my life.

I lived in denial about the relationship.  I thought eventually things would change and I would have my dream.  I always remember thinking to myself that the instant I said the words "I love you" it would all be over.  So for close to four years I held those words in my heart.  As if to bring that prophecy to pass, the only time I ever told him how I felt was on the last day I saw him.  I said "I love you, you idiot.  Why do you think I have put up with this so long?"  I always recall he was taken back by those words but it didn't change that it was the last time I ever saw him.

But that denial was what kept me going.  I could live in a pseudo world of hope that my fairy tale ending would come true.  I even let my ex boyfriend back into my life for two years after we broke up in a foolish attempt to have what I wanted while he took everything.  I prayed for two years that we would work it out.  But all that went up in smoke the day I found his online dating profile.  He was happy to sleep with me but not happy to disclose to me that he was actively looking for someone else, thus risking my life for his own selfish need to feel good.

I was in denial because I feared the unknown.  I feared that I wasn't worth something better.  I feared I would have no more physical contact ever with another person.  I feared being alone.  There was a lot I would have to face if I let my ex out of my life.  And that thought was daunting, terrifying even.

So when I look at my family, and the obviousness of the issues they face, I think back to my time with my ex.  I realize that it is not for me to decide what is best for them.  They have to be ready to leave that comfort zone and face the unknown.  My mother says to me "I've been with him for thirty years".  I say "Is that a reason to live in a constant state of depression?"

We each teach others how to treat us.  And if we live in denial and refuse to change the status quo then perhaps we are more guilty of being afraid of the unknown rather than being in denial.  I believe we all see the truth, but it takes a very strong person to step outside what they know in order to try and achieve the happiness we all crave.  So perhaps our own happiness lies within stepping into the unknown rather than living in denial.