Dirty Water
Hooray for water da....oh. OH!
So, today was water day! Whoo! A day where all the kids get to play on waterslides, with water balloons, in the pools, water dodgeball, water bowling, etc. , and there was a certain point in this particular water day that got me thinking aboutthis blog entry.
We were outside by the giant inflatable waterslide we bring out every week. All the kids were playing, and I overheard this conversation between 5-10 kids and one girl who kept wanting to go into the bottom of the waterslide every couple of seconds. It went a little like this:
Kids: "Why do keep going in the waterslide?"
Girl: [Proudly] BECAUSE I'M DIRTY!!!!
She kept playing in the water, and then going in the mud, and then repeating the process over and over. Where I come in, is that all the kids kept saying to me, "Come in the water! Come in the water!" I took one good look at the water and said, "Absolutely not!" To the kids this was the life. They were excited, having fun, running, splashing, throwing, etc.
Quidditch, Water day, almost the same thing, right?
To me I was looking at this mixture of water, filth, dirt, and I don't even want to know what else would have been in there. I was staring at the water like, " Wow, how did I ever enjoy this?" Because it looked like this to me:
But that was my perspective looking in. 10 years ago I was 12-13 too, and I know I would have been all about being in the water, filth, dirt, and all the other things that come along with water days. But I am not who I was 10 years ago, and I don't think anyone is. You see, perspective is the dirty water. It didn't always start of clouded by whatever people were in before hitting the water, but after a while that's what happens. Our perspectives change by everything we are and become. When we are young, we don't really have a grasp on what perspective is: clear water. We are empty slates that get less empty, and less empty as we go on through life. What happened to make me switch from loving water day exclusively to seeing water as bunch a kids getting dirty, peeing in the water, and whatever else? Well, of course ten years, and a change of perspective, but much more than that. I lived! I saw things, experienced things, learned things, and therefore I knew things. Or, I've led myself to believe I know things. But that's perspective, you only know what you know, and can't know anymore than that...on your own. We'll come back to this.
I recently watched the movie Kingsman: The Secret Service, and SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!
The gist of the movie deals with Samuel L. Jackson's character, Mr. Valentine, developing software that will keep the world safe. How did he do it? Through a sim card that would make humanity go mad and kill each other in order to keep the population low, and the Earth itself, in a sense, happy. He tried to warn people about climate change, based on what he knew, based on his perspective; and this what he came up with.
"I stepped things down because I wasn't getting anywhere. Every bit of research kept pointing to the same thing. The carbon emissions are a red herring, and we are past the point of no return, no matter what remedial actions we take. Humankind is the only virus cursed to live with the horrifying knowledge of its host's fragile mortality."
Just a few parts of a conversation he had in the movie compiled together to show his thoughts. Due to everything he'd been through, experienced, thought about, and thought he knew, after hitting a wall, the only thing he could think of was the fact that people need to be eradicated so the wealthy, and well to do could restart and rebuild. So long story short, Valentine takes all the world's most wealthy and powerful people, and places them in their own little spot where they won't be affected by the brain wave modulator that makes people go crazy, and where they could watch the destruction of humanity unfold, and celebrate it, by eating, drinking, and being merry! However, the Kingsman agency had a different perspective. They believed the opposite and they fought for that. There is a scene that brings these two conflicts of interest together. And it touches on what I wanted to say about perspective. The rich people, who knew money, comfort, wealth, luxury thought nothing of it. In Valentine's care, they were sheltered, they had all the luxuries they normally had, all their wealth, etc., and so from their perspective, everything was copasetic. Therefore, they never saw this coming.
Because Valentine thought he knew everything, and pushed out everyone else who thought otherwise, or had a different perspective, he ended up having to witness the one thing he dreaded most: seeing people die, suffer, bleed, and the like. Was Valentine right? Yeah, obviously, if people don't take better care of the planet, there very well might not be any planet left. However, were the Kingsman right? Absolutely! Destroying humanity while letting the rich and powerful watch on as if it was a reality television program is not cool. And destroying people for no reason other than to live more comfortably should never be the "only" solution someone should come up with for "saving the world". But we do this all the time. I know we've all heard these sayings: "You wouldn't understand!", "You don't know what I know!", "You're stupid for seeing this that way!", "I took this class in college, and people need to understand this and that!", and on and on. If these sayings were so true and encompassed the essence of any perspective, then what does anyone know? Why does it always seem so hard to see that perspective isn't "I'm on this this side, you're on this side, and if my side thinks we're right, then this other side is wrong?"
We all stand on different spaces of the world. And the world is a sphere; it has no sides. We need to get to a place where we've found peace with ourselves and enough so that we can handle people's hopes, fears, visions, and what they know and see with the utmost respect. Yeah, you can very well go around pointing fingers; tell me how that works out for you. It might, it might not not, but either way, all that will come from it will be more pointing, and ultimately, nothing is going to change in the core of things. And the last time I checked, the outward apperance of change alone is not change. When did we forget how to communicate with people?
I feel a lot of this inability to communicate comes from the fact that not many people take a deep breath or reflect anymore. Our culture almost prevents that happening anymore. Something happens, it gets flashed in our faces every second, and we take up our ethernet arms and we're there clicking away all day, everyday, until something else pops up and sets us off again. Things can't just happen anymore, people can't just be happy about anything anymore, nobody takes the time to absorb things in and then, after understanding much, listening an extreme amount, and figuring out a better solution than hate everyone we don't like, and if people don't see things our way- we're going to stoop to the lowest level possible- because that will show them! And we miss it, we completely miss that this is the stuff that is what leads to the "Valentines" of the world (So to speak, coming from the view of the film) but the similarities between film and reality are there.
I'm definitely going to touch on this subject in different areas in the near future, because perspective is important (check out this blog entry hurr) so I'll leave it at that. But bringing it back to Water day, it was easy for me to see the kids enjoying dirty water and continuing to go in and out of dirt and water, but only because I was looking through my lens. Was the water dirty? Yes. Was I right When I said it was filthy water getting nastier as the day went on? You bet! But were the kids right that it was fun, and that they live for water days? Absolutely. There's something we can all learn from the beautiful moment that we can all look at each other and recognize no one is going percieve things to the "T" as another does. That moment where we see that right and wrong aren't "heads or tails" on a coin. That moment when we can look at each other and understand each other, without using our primal and carnal expressions, but rather with our tools of communication. Anything else, and we might as well be living in a human zoo (I say this as a joke, but the message is there). We all have to do better! And understanding perspective is a start.
Make good decisions, love another!
