Society: Putting things all together

So in this third part of my mini-discussion on just becoming more aware and bettering yourself, let's quickly recap what's been said so far: Try not to pigeonhole and just be a little bit more aware emotionally. So what's the point of having gone through all of this without actually applying it to society? 

Society, especially Australian society, is one where we participate in a multitude of daily activities; we are constantly interacting with people of different races, all of whom have a different set of values. At times it might be easy for us simply to avoid the types of people that we dislike associating ourselves with, but a lot of the time we choose not to associate ourselves with them because we don't fully understand them. Homophobia is a particularly worthwhile example to mention, because even though these people are much like us, there is a general "fear" of this particular group of people. If we actually bothered to take our time to get to know them, we'll find that they're a lot like us; they just have a few different preferences! (For the record, no I am not a homophobe). 

This is still pretty much in line with my first post; just being aware and a little bit more sensitive of particular issues in society helps us to become a little more educated, and therefore might let us reconsider our particular choice of words. Recently, in the major sporting leagues of America (NBA, NFL), there has been a few incidents where star players have used the word "fag" in a fit of anger; spurring a fit of anger amongst homosexual communities. Having said this, they weren't using the word out of conscious awareness that it had homosexual connotations, rather, having this word simply pop to mind when angry. 

But having applied this to one group of people in society, just be more aware that the area you live in probably has a multicultural diversity which means that words that we deem "harmless" are actually quite insulting to others. Think about it; how many groups of people are present in your local area, and are you aware of the full extent of the meaning of your words? Remember, the whole point of these short blogs are to familiarize you to issues that you probably experience in day-to-day life, and how you are going to act to change your world you live in. 

Finally, just to finish up, it's not just the actions that you perform that hold influence; it's also the way in which you choose to react to people and their particular choice of words. The next time a friend says something along the lines of a gay slur whilst in a fit of anger, maybe it would be best to bring their attention to it? Maybe they are actually unaware of the weight that their choice of words holds; so assist to enlighten them in such issues so as to improve society.

Next up this week, I'll start my first post on health, talking about a couple of issues that I think are prevalent at the moment. Stay tuned! :)

Familiarization: Pigeonholing; Part 1

Well I suppose in these first few days of actually having a blog, I haven't really gotten to any main points of what I was wishing to talk about on it, so here we go. Maybe there are a few habits here and there that you readers might be able to take away, and apply to your lives, just so that your'e a little bit more aware of what's going on in your surroundings. Remember, the first step is to familiarize yourself with a potential... problem doesn't seem like the right word here, but I'm sure as we go along we'll find a better word to use.

In this initial little ramble, you may be thinking "What the hell is he on about? What's all this business with familiarization and trying to find potential problems? I'm fine!", but the whole point of this process isn't to try to cut yourself down and be degrading; it's more to note things that you could become aware of, and then improve yourself from there. I'm talking about things like:
1. Trying to eliminate as much prejudice from your life as possible
2. Being aware of emotions and how you display them
3. Being a little bit more educated in matters of society.

In today's blog we'll go through the first point; over the next few days I'll post up the second and third parts to this :) But try to take these lessons to heart, and see if you can apply them in your daily lives. Unfortunately a lot of the time, it is quite difficult to erase negativity associated with certain areas, but try it out and see if it makes a difference in your life.

Eliminating prejudice (pigeonholing)
One of the most important things I feel in life is an ability to understand the flip side of the coin; throughout life we're constantly meeting new faces and being exposed to new people, and even if it is a fleeting encounter, we tend to form a judgement based upon face value rather quickly. We can tend to pigeonhole groups, and associate emotion with them (hence the second point); whether these emotions are positive or negative remains.

Think about the groups that you've associated negatively with the pigeon-holing. Are all of the people in that group necessarily that way because they choose to be so? Let's use the rather sensitive issue of obese people; admittedly, some of them over-eat, but when are we actually educated at a young age to not eat that much? When I was young, I was told to eat as much as possible because I was a growing boy! Only as I grew up did I strongly supplement this with a rather brutal exercise regime; had I not, I would have probably joined the population of slightly larger people out there. But that doesn't justify being particularly rude to people; as was noted in a particularly disturbing article the other day, and a lot of prejudice, including overt racism, manages to creep its way into our society. Generally I feel that Australian society is doing a pretty good job at educating and keeping this to a minimum; but just a little bit more sensitivity please!

But why try to eliminate the prejudice completely? Doesn't it help to pigeonhole the nerds, the jocks, and the musos? By pigeonholing, we turn down one of the central tenets of life; that each person is born an individual and raised to remain an individual. Not saying that it completely eliminates it, but by pigeonholing (especially in negative circumstances), we prevent ourselves from meeting people who break the norm and help us to realize why we should be a little more understanding. Eventually, with more sensitivity to these encounters in life, you'll appreciate a more diverse world and become more tolerant of others. Just something to keep in mind... until part 2!

Try not to pigeonhole fellas! ... 

Welcome to the world!

Hey world!


This is new business to me, blogging, and so I feel that I am obliged to explain the nature of this blog, and why I want to write it! :)


Familiarization
A lot of us live every day in fairly routine fashion, going through the motions, without giving a moment to think about many issues that are affecting the world around us. For some, this ignorance is bliss; for most, we are unaware of the issues and remain oblivious our entire lifetime, until we intersect in the path of another that helps us to raise our awareness about certain issues. To become familiar with issues allows us to be a little more understanding in the way we approach others, and makes us better people.


Challenge
To me, the time that we have here on the earth is pretty short, but that doesn't stop me from being after the pursuit of knowledge. It sounds lame and corny, I know, we are obliged to learn as much as we can about everything on the earth before our time is up. So, one of the first reasons that this has been created is to inform you of things that I feel are of genuine interest to me, and which I wish to share with you. I hope it motivates you to challenge yourself and apply yourself more thoroughly in every aspect of life. 


Enlighten
Whilst you may be completely unaware of it, in your day-to-day life, you are able to perform incredible movements with the simple intention of movement. Some of these movements are so well embedded into your brain that they are performed subconsciously; such as driving a car, or walking. This is all possible because of the complex network of nerves in your body - the central nervous system. Now, imagine that you have 11 billion nerve cells in your body, and each one of those nerve cells makes seven thousand connections. (It's a ludicrous number :D!) BUT - take this away, with the information that you are armed with, use it to enlighten others and continue the chain of familiarising, challenging and then enlightening. Hence the name!


Anyway I know it sounds so far that I'm a pretty serious guy, but in this blog I want to talk about some serious stuff; and some other stuff that's not so serious. Throughout the lifetime of this blog (however long it lasts), you'll eventually learn about some of the issues I think are affecting society, you'll see something amusing here and there, and you'll come to learn that I am a big NBA fan and a tennis follower. 


But finally, I hope you take some things away with you and share them. 


And one last thing! Comment as much as you want, about anything that you find interesting. It can be as mundane as homework or as complex as the motion of celestial bodies around the sun, and how this varies with time (okay maybe not THAT complex). The more people that know about this the better, it gives me more to talk about, and more feedback from you readers means posts on things you want to hear about. Let me know!