Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Road to Reality

We are living in dangerous times, where people are losing touch with what is real and true and each is content to live in their own percieved world of reality - this idea of false reality is even more excrabated by all the misleading 'reality shows' we see on TV which to be honest have nothing to do with real life at all. People these days are happy to see things like they want to see them with little thought on how they actually are. It all stems from the human race being fixated by their own needs and wants too much. They see friendships, grievences, their highs and their lows through thick lenses of self -delusion, what they percieve is sometimes far from what is true and real.

But how do you define real? What is truth? A truth I guess is like a law of nature, a principle that holds true every single time. Its unshakable, universal,  reliable and guarenteed to give the same results every single time. Without going into the specifics of different religions, what do they teach us that is universal?  Answer|: good  morals. - No religion condones lying and cheating  and being unkind - so that's a reality and a truth we should all embrace whole heartedly. As for other things like who covers their head or face or who sheds clothes is a man-made reality that people have defined for themselves. It varies so much within religions, traditions and cultures, even within families, that it looses its truth - there are no rights, no wrongs other than what people define for themselves. What is real, true and sacred for one person may be completely meaningless to another.

Living in Abu Dhabi and working in a school with pupil from over 60 nationalities has been great for me and has not only opened up my perceptions on reality but has been absolutely brilliant for my children, they are growing up appreciating differences, respecting values and truths that may not be their own, but at the same time learning that some realities are more truer than others - and those are the ones they really need to hold on to above all others. I really cannot think of any better place for my kids to grow up in - life in Abu Dhabi has been a pure blessing to us as a family.

Rather than passing on our values to our kids blindly, we should think about their world they live in. The sensibilities of their times and age are different from ours - the cyber responsibilities and demands placed on them make them in some ways more worldly than our generation. They have to contend with far more and far quicker than we were ever programmed to. Its humbling when you think about the world opening up to them in ways we never experienced - so why expect them to blindly follow your sensibilities without question? They have the right to question your values, and the right to make their own sense, their own realities of their times - and if you let them do just that, you'll sometimes be very pleasantly surprised when they choose your values as the true ones that they really need to hold on to.

The Offended

We have become a global community on taking offense over anything and everything. We not only take offense on a daily basis over trivial ...