Changing from a Caterpillar to a Butterfly So We Can Deal with “Different”
The process of metamorphosis is desperately needed in our society right now.
You scare me!
Are you afraid of me?
Why?
Because you don’t know me?
Is that it?
Is it because you think I am someone different from who I really am?
Could that fear be born from unfamiliarity?
We all have a fear of the unknown, or of what we don’t know. That is what makes us cautious when new people are introduced to us.
Before we allow a new person into our lives, we try to find out as much as we can about them, without coming right out and asking them.
We will search Twitter, or Facebook, or a myriad of other social media sources to get a glimpse of their character, trying to gauge where they stand on issues and whether their values are similar to ours.
When I was still working, I would often play detective and search Google or other search engines for anything I could find about any new person who was wanting to befriend me.
As far as I know, you are probably doing the same search right now, looking for information about me.
Touché! We all do it!
America’s need to evolve.
Our country is changing right before our eyes and, unfortunately, many of us can’t recognize it, neither do we know how to deal with things happening around us because of these changes.
We appear to be fixated on letting others feed us bad information without trying to validate anything on our own — independently — and the result is it paralyzes us into a state of stubborn dormancy, unable and unwilling to recognize people for who they are and what they represent, unwilling to change to keep in step with a fast-paced world.
Many scholars and historians see this as a significant, nation-wide increase in authoritarianist views, which strikes a blow directly to the heart of our hard-fought democracy.
Going from one extreme (democracy) to another (authoritarian) is not a pretty process, nor is it orderly. Consequently, as a country we seem afraid of our future as a democratic republic.
We are tentative in searching for a modicum of peace and unity, not wanting to latch onto only one specific savior. Given our current presidential candidates, neither of them are the answer to our problems.
I vote we keep looking!
Thanks for reading this.
© Ken Kayse. All rights reserved.
