My little tiff about the intolerance of humanity

For those of you that don't know me well, I have an alternative side. Every Wednesday morning, from 10am until midday (and sometimes longer, should time permit) I head down to my local Centre for Mind, Body, Spirit and fill in at reception while Sylvia, the owner, is able to run errands and do her own thing for a couple of hours. It's not paid, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. I do it purely to get out of the house, to have some sort of face-to-face contact with civilisation, and to, for two hours a week, surround myself with relaxing, soothing, calming vibrations.

The Centre is housed in a double story, art deco, spanish styled mansion at the end of the main street of Werribee. It is the house that all the locals look upon as the abandoned haunted house, especially me, who was prone to a wild imagination in my childhood years. The house remained unoccupied the entire time I've lived in Werribee, a good 21 years. It is the house that remained an elusive mystery, the one we as children would sneak into the grounds (overgrown with weeds and shrubs, of course) and peer through the dusty windows into the dark, dank interior, secretly hoping to spot a ghost or two.

Well, now I get to spend time in this house every week, and it has this strangely soothing vibe about it. It provides me an escape from the mundane, and I have free range of books to read while I'm there. I don't have to do anything except man the phone and reception while Sylvia ducks out. It is my idea of temporary bliss.

This morning, I came across a book called The Roswell Message 50 Years on- The Aliens Speak. I never really got into the whole Roswell thing (not actually being alive at the time probably didn't help) but I have always been fascinated in UFOs or anything unexplainable. This book caught my attention because it contained actual dialogue with one of the ETs that died in the UFO crash. The ET was contacted psychically by a medium, in the presence of a scientist who wanted to ask loads of questions.

Now I know there are a LOT of skeptics out there. And skeptics have every right to their own opinions as I do.  But the dialogue was absolutely fascinating. The ET, who identified itself as Lilit, said that it's race was basically what humanity evolves to a few million years in the future. Millions of years ago their race chose the path of technology (sound familiar?) and as a result there were many things about them that are different to humans. The main one, which I found beautiful, was that they live in peace and harmony, and that their only life philosophy is respect for all life.

I'm not going to talk about the book any more, because this was the main point I wanted to talk about. Respect for all life. Why is that such a difficult philosophy for some of us to live by? Everything that is wrong with the world today can be blamed on intolerance of one race to another, of one individual towards another. Intolerance of religion, belief systems, cultures, ways of life, morals, values, whatever. I need to ask these pressing questions:

Who cares if someone is a different race to you?

What does it matter if one society lives totally differently to yours?

Why is the West so intent on getting the rest of the world to be like them?

Why is the US so intent on making other countries into mini-America?

Why must we all be the same?

God, could you imagine what the world would be like if we WERE all the same?? Had the same morals and values and opinions, the same coloured skin, spoke the same language? What a BLOODY BORING place it would be! Not only that, but we would have got NOWHERE as a species! We would all still be sitting around the fire speaking oog-oog to each other because no one had the sense to be different.

Why is there so much intolerance in the world? Is it part of who we are? Why must each religion claim their own as being the one true religion, and damn the rest of them to eternal whatever? My opinion of this even includes things such as some societies viewing women as lesser species. Of course, personally, I disagree and think men and women are equal in all things. But I'm not going to sit here and preach to someone who disagrees with my view. I'm going to accept that fine, that's the way they think, this is the way I think, let's leave it at that. Just accepting people, cultures, societies as they are, and appreciating their similarities and using their differences to appreciate OUR society! Like, thank god we don't live in a society where it's ok to eat other people! And thank god we don't live in a society where I will be prosecuted for wearing pants!

It just makes me sad to think that people are so fixated on differences that they can't see the similarities. I think it was Groove Armada that said "If everybody looked the same, we'd be tired of looking at each other." Wise words. 

Book Review- Tuesdays with Morrie: an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lessons (Mitch Albom)

I loved this book. It is an easy read, but at the same time it tackles life's greatest questions and makes you think, which is what makes this such a great book.

The story is about a Mitch Albom's college professor (Morrie) who has been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Mitch goes to visit him (yep, every Tuesday) as the disease slowly takes control of his body. During this time Mitch comes up with a list of topics he'd like to discuss with Morrie You see, Morrie is one of those people that everyone could benefit from having in their lives. He was the type of person who followed his passions, never let superficial things get in the way of his true loves, drew people towards him like moths to a flame, didn't care what society thought, and was incredibly insightful and wise- all of which were magnified when he found out he had a terminal illness.

The topics (or the syllabus) that Mitch and Morrie covered are: The world, feeling sorry for yourself, regrets, death, family, emotions, fear of aging, money, how love goes on, marriage, our (western) culture, and forgiveness.

We need more books in our life that approach these topics with an open mind. I took away three lessons from this one:

1. That no matter how much money and material possessions you have, they will never buy you lasting happiness and contentment. I mean to the point where you say "I don't need anything else in my life, I have all that I could possibly need to make me happy". I've covered this briefly in my post Generation X and Y: the lost generations?.

2. The most important things in life really are friends and family. Because at the end of the day, if you have no one to talk to, it's all worth nothing (unless, of course, you're one of those people that is perfectly happy being on your own)

3. We will never be truly happy until we can look at ourselves and accept all our faults and try to make them better, rather than try and make more money, get skinnier etc. If we can learn from our imperfections, accept that we all age and eventually die, and learn to enjoy life for what it is rather than slowing down the process of death, we will be able to live better lives.

You can buy Tuesdays with Morrie here