Be a real Rabbit

I love the story about the velveteen Rabbit that longs to be real. The poor rabbit needed to lose some of it's fluff and perfection to achieve this state. I feel that I had my pretensions taken away from me at quite a young age. I have never regretted it as I feel the state of real is something that you should strive for.

I get really worried about people that I know that are still full of pretensions. I have seen how the life has a tendency to dish out enough problems to equal the level of entitlement shown. I have seen people live their lives so as to impress others with stuff that is only created by smoke and mirrors. Motivation is also so important. When the motivation is greed then nothing good can come out of it.

The other side of this is the really dumb choices people make to ensure that they experience problems. I have done it to myself; whilst sitting far too comfortably in my life; I took myself overseas to work so that I could feel what poverty felt like. I learnt two seriously important lessons, firstly that I didn't like living under the bread line and secondly, that the grass is not always greener on the other side. But, hey, some more of my pretensions went away and I became a bit more real.

If you think of the word pretentious, then the root of the word is pretend. I think that it is a form of insecurity that initiates pretentiousness. It is frightening to stand in front of the world and let it see who you actually are. The biggest leap is not to give a damn. This is both coming towards you and going out from you. Giving a damn is not the same as caring. You should still care, but not with the negativity that is required with trying to impress people. The other thing to remember is that anything that other members of your family have done is not your fault and no guilt is needed over the deeds of others. You can admit to others what has occurred in your life and the interesting thing is having a real conversation may allow other to be real back. It is amazing how many experiences people have in common.

I have also witnessed people who borrow other people's woes. These are often celebrities who the borrower has never met. Borrowing other people’s sorrows is a shocking thing to do. It is sham and is part of pretension. You do not grow as a person by crying tears over something that is not your lesson. It is just self indulgence and often only performed so that others can see how sensitive you are. Be careful as the tears you cry over someone else’s lesson, as this may cause the lesson to be given to you.

It is the same as criticism. In my life I have experience most of the things that I had thought harshly about in others. In retrospect it is all quite funny. I suppose that is what the final realization should always be. That all the things that we go through are all just material for and excellent comedy routine called life. So be brave, show the world who you actually are and maybe slowly but surely you will loose the new and shiny fur that you had as protection and then you too will be real.

Namaste'  

Anthropology: are you making it?

Here is a question: Has electronic storage of your history destroyed the anthropological foot print you may have left for future generation? Has electronic storage actually created a footprint that you can share? How many photos have you actually printed so that when your hard drive crashes or Facebook decides to throw away your posted photos you have something to look at?

It is also an interesting question of how will future generations remember you? Have you made anything that will be looked at and actually get a spark of memory happening? Have you done anything interesting so that stories can be told about you?

I have a box that contains my mother's family artefacts and I have also added items from my mother's life. There are stories from my family's history, but mostly due to the fact that they were on the frontiers of Africa. Most of the history has tragic overtones. I have tried to tell stories of their lives, but there are so many holes in the tales that it is just a work of fiction. I have photos of their lives it still does not bring their thoughts through.

I suppose that DNA is the one way in which we can follow the history of our ancestors and future generation will be able to see their path right back to us and then back to the cave man. Our little journey of passing on the human message has been encoded. I liked the Dune books where knowledge was passed down to the next generation. I suppose that is the nature part of it and then the nurture will reflect the history of the families that led to the way that we think.

The values we have are hopefully better than the previous generation. That is whatever generation you are from. Hopefully my children will actually have children of their own and whether good or bad, those children get to hear stories of my life.

Namaste'