Head of fire tiger in blue. Illustration on black background.
This is the first of a series of blog articles where I will take a “fresh” look at “old” pieces that I published in the past, keeping it short and sweet. The main idea is to highlight the key concept or lesson that I shared, getting straight to the point and giving you food for thought. Long story short we are fast approaching the end of the year of the Tiger. So what have we learned?
Tiger Spirit
Time flies and just like that we are soon coming to the end the year 2022, the Year of the Tiger. According to people who know how to decipher those zodiac signs, the year of the Tiger is about making significant changes. It is a year of risk-taking and adventure. We are finding enthusiasm again, both for ourselves and for others. Everybody is fired up, generosity of at an all-time high and social progress feels possible again. Tigers do things their own way and hate being told what to do.
Long Story Short – Episode 1- The Year of the Tiger – Photo by user 14901510 via freepik.com
Tiger symbolism is most commonly associated with strength and courage, as well as determination and independence. Tigers travel great distances, but they also spend time resting and saving energies, in readiness for their next hunt or battle. Some fights are worth fighting others are not. Tigers are good at choosing which pursuits are worth their time and energy.
The tiger animal spirit is silent and solitary and thrives when there are no distractions. Its focus becomes more laser-sharp, and the silence makes it easier to spot any kind of movement nearby. Do not come rushing and roaring at your targets because this is the easiest way you can lose them from your grasp. Take a step back and think of the best approach. Sometimes to be successful in life, you need to forgo speed and aggression; slow down, listen closely, and wait for the perfect timing, no matter how long it takes.
The man who is free is the one who knows.
Unkwown author
Instead of relying on someone else to tell you what to think and what to do open your eyes, open your ears, open your heart, exercise independent judgment, take responsibility, and become self-reliant. If someone tells you that there is a hailstorm outside, and another person is telling you that it is bright and sunny outside; your job is not to believe and repeat those two contradictory statements, your job is to open your front door, step outside and see for yourself if it is stormy or sunny.
The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity
Long Story Short – Episode 1- The Year of the Tiger -Be courageous. Emulate the tiger. Photo by Freepik via freepik.com
Most people believe that to be a good person you have to be a compliant person and do what one is told by those in positions of political power backed up by their lackeys in the media and celebrity culture. The problem these days is that people who value social conformity are so self-righteous that they feel the need to impose their views on those who are more fluid in their thinking.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the conformists would just be happy to conform and permit those who can exercise independent judgment the freedom to make their own choices. No, that is not how things work these days; we live in an era where you are not permitted to think for yourself anymore, if you dare to do so, the thought police will make sure to penalize you, de-platform you, cancel you, censor you so that you can’t express those “unacceptable views” anymore.
We are now living in a society where you can’t say or do anything without having to ask some authorities for permission or worry about some nasty consequences if people really knew what you really think, but if you are inhabited by the Tiger spirit you would know that “a Tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of Sheep.”
We are living in a weird kind of world. Our physical needs are well catered for in a modern and comfortable environment, but our mental state is in turmoil, we often feel disenchanted and disempowered. The world does not make sense anymore and everything seems to be upside down. Go Figure!
This article is my attempt to shed some light on this current state of affairs. Let’s pause for a minute or two and think about some essential life lessons. Before you assume, learn the fact. Before you judge, understand why. Before you hurt someone, feel. Before you speak think.
Thinking is part of what makes us human. What differentiates humans from animals is our cognitive abilities such as fully developed language, reasoning capabilities, and the ability to make plans for the future. We are all born with the capacity to think, but not everyone is capable of critical thinking, and it is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced with discipline.
The problem is that most people don’t know what thinking is, they confuse it with feeling. Go figure!
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is, he confuses it with feeling.”
Thomas Sowell
We all like to think of ourselves as rational, strategic creatures, but in reality, humans are deeply irrational and are often governed by emotion rather than logic. Moreover, we tend to operate within our own echo chamber, where the only information that goes through our brain is information that validates our prior knowledge, vindicates our prior decision, or sustains our existing beliefs.
Critical thinking means many things, but at heart, it is a search for the truth. Critical thinking helps us determine what is real and what it is not. But before we can exercise our cognitive ability to think critically, we need to have a certain knowledge base as a starting point. We can only think critically about things we have knowledge of. We don’t have the structure to think deeply if we haven’t spent time mastering a body of knowledge related to that thinking.
The way to arrive at the truth is through discussion because the truth is never absolute it is always complex and dynamic. You can’t have a deep discussion about some important issues without having freedom of expression. You know that you live in a free society if you can speak your mind without fear of being harassed, bullied, censored, canceled, or dismissed from your job because of something you said. You know that you live in a tyranny if you are censored, bullied, harassed, and the “Thought Police /The Ministry of Truth” are after you because of something you said that goes against the official narrative.
“History books are full of stories of people being violently silenced because of their opinion. The people doing the silencing are never the good guys.”
Politicians want to establish themselves as morally and intellectually superior to the population, [warning: you may lose some brain cells watching them speak.] People in positions of power tend to think that Common people are incapable of thinking for themselves so they step in, and talk to the citizenry with a condescending tone to make them understand that the government can think for them instead and dictate to them how they should live their life.
Freedom of expression is the lifeblood and cornerstone of a free society, without the freedom to think and express ourselves freely, there is no free society. So, we’d better start thinking for ourselves freely before it becomes illegal. Don’t get all romantic about your ideas and the ideas that the group promotes. You are not married to those ideas. Some ideas are good and others not so good. Stay free to adhere to the ideas that are congruent with your outlook in life and toss aside anything that makes you uncomfortable.
People should be able to stand for what they think is right. They should be able to fight for what is honorable and they should have the freedom to reject what is slimy and unacceptable. The problem these days is that people are becoming more and more unhinged about all kinds of issues, and they do this with a kind of totalitarian certainty about their beliefs that is concerning. You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to tell me what mine should be and don’t try to shove your ideas down my throat because I am perfectly capable of forming my own ideas about this and that.
“Just because I disagree with you, does not mean that I hate you. We need to relearn that in our society”
Morgan Freeman
If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed. Go figure!
Thomas Jefferson is believed to be the true author of this quote; he explained his thinking further by adding that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; in as much as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
We are living in a world of information overload, data about almost everything is available to all who wish to access it at the click of a button. We are constantly bombarded by a steady stream of information (sometimes misinformation, and disinformation) about a whole range of subject matters, making it very difficult to know what and who to believe.
Misinformation is false information that is being spread, regardless of intent to mislead. Disinformation on the other hand is false information that is deliberately misleading, manipulated narrative or facts or propaganda that is being spread with the intent to hurt or damage a person or organization. Did you know that the world media is owned by only 9 corporations who have a near-monopoly on the type of information that people receive? Those 9 corporations are exercising an enormous amount of influence on how people perceive the world they live in.
“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power.”
Malcolm X
We are living in the age of deception. The truth is not the truth anymore. Facts don’t matter anymore, what matters is how you feel about this and that. People get triggered and enraged by inconvenient facts that they are not ready to receive. Those who are in control need the masses to constantly live in a state of fear and anger. Fear drive people to turn to the government to protect and save them. Anger is always useful because governments like to have the masses turn their anger and frustration onto the boogeyman who can be blamed for everything. Go figure!
The most disturbing aspect of what is going on in the world today is that it is tearing apart our society and family. Take a family of 4 individuals, each member of this family has their personalized information funnel that they come to rely upon, and trust and it is typically different for all 4 members of this family, tearing them apart. Those narratives purposefully polarize our families and society.
The net effect is that people are exhausted from the conflicting narratives, people are getting sick and tired of trying to figure out who and what to believe. More and more people are suffering from media fatigue they are becoming so disillusioned by all the lies and nonsense that they reject all kind of information that is coming through. Go figure!
But there is a silver lining, this media fatigue is driving people to learn to trust a deeper source of truth i.e., their truth. People are saying: to themselves “I don’t know what’s true and what’s not true out there, but I know what is true for me.” For some people is just a gut feeling for others is a deeper form of personal truth. When things get really crazy, they stop for a minute or two and say to themselves. “That doesn’t sound right at all. Am I being played? Well, there is no way for me to be sure of anything, but I am not playing this game.” This way of thinking opens a path for us to become less vulnerable and less susceptible to all those manipulation media tactics because we empower ourselves and become no longer the victims of misinformation and disinformation.
We need people who are so strong they can be gentle. So educated, they can be humble. So fierce, they can be compassioante. So passionate, they can be rational and so disciplined, they can be free.”
Unknown author
And this, my dear friend is Your Quest. Go figure how the world works and find your own silver lining.
Happy 4th of July to all my American friends and followers.
A beautiful shot of a person with red jacket skiing down the snowy mountain with a blurred background
“There is no slippery slope towards the loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step down must first be tolerated by the people and their leaders” Alan K Simpson.
We are all on some slipery slopes to some unpleasant place called tyranny. A lot of people say I don’t want tyranny, I want to be free. But what is freedom? People need to be able to define it. To believe in it. To defend it. To implement it. The problem these days is that society seems to have fallen into some kind of torpor led by unquestioning obedience towards the establishment and the mainstream narrative. We all know that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. History is littered with examples of the “savior” becoming the oppressor.
When Ernest Hemingway was asked how he became bankrupt he answered, Gradually, then suddenly. Similarly, governments become tyrannical gradually, and then suddenly. Living in a democratic society gives you a false sense of security because it makes you believe that all is rosy and the system is here to protect you and your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Except that, for those who have eyes to see and ears to listen, we can see that some democratic governments are eating away people’s freedom inch by inch in a sneaky kind of way, all for your own good, of course. Beware of the wolf wearing sheep clothing.
The question, is are we all on a slippery slope towards a very unpleasant place? I think so, but the good news is that more and more people are waking up from a long period of torpor and are responding with admirable courage and fortitude to the continuous assault on their liberty.
Slippery slope ahead: man was born free but everywhere you look he is in chains
Slippery slopes ahead- Photo by Claudiodly via freepick.com
“When you see that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing. When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favor. When you see that men get richer more easily by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them but protect them against you. When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming self-sacrifice. You may know that your society is doomed. Such is the nature of a sick society; lies are truth, violence is love, sociopathic behavior is leadership, and most important of all, slavery is freedom.” Ayn Rand
The ideas expressed below are coming straight from Chapter 7 of my book “This Is Your Quest”. According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau “Man was born free, and everywhere you look he is in chains”, but it doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible to find freedom in an unfree world. It is not a given to think that everyone wants to be free. Most people are willing to sacrifice freedom for security. In a free society, the primary role of the government is to protect individuals and their property from aggression by others.
Rulers have always needed some kind of excuse to justify their authority and the fact that they alone have the power to dictate to the masses how they should lead their lives. Originally Kings defended their right to rule by citing the Divine Rights of Kings. No one would dare to question the authority of the King because his power was given directly to him by God. But with kingdoms falling, a new justification for rulership was required. Thomas Hobbes came to the rescue and provided the justification that the elite needed.
Hobbes’ book Leviathan” established the foundation for modern political philosophy. Hobbes said that life without government would inevitably lead to conflict, to a war of all against all, life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. To escape this sorry state of affairs, Hobbes argues that all individuals must yield their rights to a sovereign authority for the sake of their protection. And if the Sovereign was to act badly, men must accept it as the price for peace. Hobbes, however, was manifestly wrong.
On the other end of the spectrum, we find Etienne de la Boetie who was a French Judge, writer, and founder of the modern political philosophy that emerged in France during the Renaissance era. He is best known for his essay “Discours de la Servitude Volontaire” — “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude” attacking absolute monarchy and tyranny. The essay asserts that tyrants have power because people give it to them.
“Once liberty has been abandoned by society, it stays corrupted and prefers the slavery of the courtesan to the freedom of one who refuses to dominate as he refuses to obey.” Etienne de la Boetie
La Boetie linked obedience with domination; by advocating a solution of simply refusing to support the tyrant, he became one of the earliest advocates of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance. To him, the great mystery of politics is obedience to the rulers. Why in the world do people agree to be looted and otherwise oppressed by government overlords? It is not just fear, La Boetie explains, for our consent is required. And that consent can be non-violently withdrawn. If you give your power away, it will be recycled against you in the form of tranny; if you don’t give it away the tyrants have no power.
Slippery slope ahead: the ignorance of the power inherent to all of us by Natural Law
Slippery slopes ahead. Photo by Wirestock via freepik.com
Natural law is the idea that there are rational objective limits to the power of legislative rulers. Aristotle is often said to be the father of natural law. Aristotle defined human beings as rational animals. He believed that the highest human happiness or well-being is found in living a life that is consistently, excellently, and completely in accordance with reason. The natural law thesis holds that if a human law fails to be backed up by decisive reason, then it is not a proper law at all. The most important aspect of natural law is that a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or take away the means of preserving the same.
We should remind ourselves that the government is working for us and not the other way round; the government derives its power from the consent of the governed. This implies that we the people have the power but we have consented to the surrender of some of our rights in order to elect a government whose role is to represent and protect their people. Government should not encroach upon our natural rights, which are sacred to us as human beings, and those rights cannot be taken away by legislation. The presumption of liberty declares that the rights that we did not surrender to the government we retain ourselves and they can never be taken away from us by the government, by legislation, by decree. In an ideal world, governments should only limit themselves to the protection of our natural rights. But this is not what is happening today.
Today, what we live in is a world where the thought police are out there waiting to cancel us, censor us, demonize us and lock us up just because we dare to think for ourselves and step away from the official narrative. What is right for you may not be right for me. What is right for me may not be right for you. But what is not right for either of us is being stripped of the freedom to choose what is right for ourselves. There is nothing extreme about wanting the freedom to make our own decision. Freedom of expression is the lifeblood and cornerstone of a free society, without the freedom of expression to think and express ourselves freely, there is no free society. So, we’d better start thinking for ourselves quickly before it becomes illegal.
“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it all .” Noam Chomsky
“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you do not approve of.” Thomas Sowell.
We are currently living in a society where the government can restrict your freedom of movement to the limit of your own house, where hugging and kissing are forbidden, where adults are being infantilized and children are made to grow up with a victimhood mentality and a guilty conscience for who they are. Freedom should never be a reward for good behavior, that is how prison works!
Who would have thought a couple of years ago that we would be living in a society that denies your children the right to an education? A society where parents and normal hard-working citizens would be labeled domestic terrorists just because they dare to ask questions? Who would have thought that we would be living in a society where the government would prevent you from earning a living, deny you access to food supply chains and medical facilities; a society where the government would be able to confiscate and/or freeze all your assets including your bank accounts, all without due process for your own good, of course. All of those are big slippery slopes.
“If you have to be persuaded, reminded, pressured, lied to, incentivized, coerced, bullied, socially shamed, guilt-tripped, threatened, punished, and criminalized; if all of this is considered necessary to gain your compliance, you can be absolutely certain that what is being promoted is not in your best interest.” Ian Watson.
“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed, they must rely exclusively on force.” George Orwell.
Courage is the most important of all the virtues
Slippery slopes ahead. Photo by Ski Anatolly via freepik.com
“Courage is the most important of all virtues because without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues consistently” Maya Angelou
We are not born courageous, we learn to be. Courage is a skill that needs to be practiced. Courage is contagious.
At the end of the day, we should always remember that grapes must be crushed to make wine. Diamonds form under pressure. Olives are pressed to release oil. Seeds grow in darkness. So, whenever you feel crushed, under pressure, pressed or in darkness, you are in a powerful place of transformation. Good things are coming down the road, just keep walking but make sure to avoid all the slippery slopes along the way. May the road you choose be the right road.
This article is dedicated to the Canadian truckers who demonstrated to the whole world what heroes are made of. Heroes don’t always wear a cape, some of them drive trucks.
Personal Note
I have been working closely for the past months with Data-Driven Investor (DDI) Publication. DDI has recently launched a new marketplace/platform where people can book a paid one-to-one session with an expert of their choice. DDI asked me to join their panel of advisors/experts in the Leadership, Coaching, and Personal Growth category. Here is my profile. If you wish to book a one-to-one chat with me you can do so on this platform.
You can be free in an unfree world. The Utopia Trap
“Things are not what they seem, first impression deceives many, the intelligence of a few perceive what has been carefully hidden”. Phaedrus c.444 – 393 BC. Phaedrus, whose name translates to bright or radiant was an ancient aristocrat who enjoyed the company of philosophers. He was particularly interested in the nature of reality. He spent long hours asking himself the following questions: do we see things how they are or only how they seem to us? Is seeing believing? Can we trust our senses? How do we know how something really is?
“The mind is strange in the way that it picks and chooses what it wants to see. The way people let their emotions, conditions, and state of mind guide their perspective ultimately decides who they are as a person.”
Maya Reed
Things are not what they seem, the first impression deceives many
The text below is an extract written by my eldest daughter Maya which introduces Part Two of my book “This Is Your Quest”
The view from my window – by Maya Reed.
Things are not what they seem, first impression deceives many. The view from my window.
No matter a person’s race, gender, status, or health, everyone has a window that acts as their unique glimpse into the world. However, this window varies greatly from person to person, and any aspect about someone can determine what he or she sees out of it. The view from these windows is in a constant state of change and can be altered by something as substantial as how we are raised or our lifestyle, to something as trivial as how we are feeling on a particular day.
When looking out of this figurative window, things such as the time of day can reflect a specific state of mind. In times of happiness, the beauty of the world hits me like a truck. This is when I look out my window and see a bright sunrise marking the dawn of a new day. As the sun makes it steady ascent, it brings the excitement of new possibilities with it. Light bursts forth from the horizon in an onslaught of colors, forcing the darkness into a hasty retreat. In these moments, everything is picture perfect and it only magnifies with the growing light – the world radiates alacrity.
The sky is painted in stunning streaks of red, pink, purple, and blue and the birds sing their delight to the heavens. With sunlight already streaming through the window, my eyes turn to a world blanketed in tranquility. Leaves dance in the wind, taking my mind with them. People amble down the street, content clear on their faces. I see a couple as they walk by my window. They stroll hand in hand, simply appreciating each other’s touch. Birds soar through the sky with effortless grace, trees sway in the wind, and everything is infinitely beautiful. I can see all the wonder the world has to offer.
Somewhere, in the distance, a newborn takes its first breath. Elsewhere, jobs are being offered, vows are taken, homes are found, love is declared, sickness is overcome, and countless more bring a smile to my face. It is as if the sun’s rays illuminate anything and everything worthwhile and lift them up on a shinning pedestal. In this merry state of mind, negativity is easily overpowered, but the light that ensures this sanctuary is not constant.
Light brings wonder to people’s lives, but it is not possible for light to exist without darkness. I once again find myself taking a moment to properly look out my window. However, after a long and strenuous day, the sunset is upon me, and as I watch, the sun is slowly but surely beating back under the horizon.
My eyes scan what’s below me and a vague familiarity resides beneath the layers of dense darkness, but my optimism died with the sun. The light is gone, and with it, the happiness it brought. Now, all the wrongs the light refused to expose become painfully clear. In my mind’s somber restlessness, the shadows jump out with murderous intent, and the darkness is suffocating.
The same couple walks past my window, but this time I notice the strange tightness in which he grips her hand, and her refusal to look him in the eye. The amblers’ steps are reduced to depressed plodding, and even the breeze seems to whisper threats. It soon becomes achingly clear that the songbirds fled long ago, and the silence they leave behind is deafening. The glass is the only thing that separates me from the world where evil lurks around every corner, but the darkness threatens to break the seal.
In an instant, the darkness thickens and every shadowed window hides a depressed, overworked child. It is far too easy to notice that every second, a driver’s mistake becomes a death sentence, tears tun like rivers, blood taints the soil, someone takes the fatal jump, maledictions are hurled at one another, lives are shattered, and the savage reality of this world cracks down like a whip. In the same way, the light blinded me to anything I didn’t want to see, the darkness is enough to suppress everything worth seeing.
The mind is strange in the way that it picks and chooses what it wants to see in the world. Some days it will go through the terrifying, disheartening, and even confusing process of freezing to gawk at the shadows. Other days it will inexplicably decide to turn it back to what lies in the darkness and instead ogle at the brilliance of the sun.
In fact, the true nature of the world is rarely seen. Constantly fluctuating emotions act as lenses for our window. They can taint, brighten, dull, enhance, blind, illuminate and change the view of different surroundings. The way people let their emotions, conditions, and state of mind guide their perspective ultimately decides who they are as a person.
Things are not what they seem, first impression deceives many, the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden
‘The eyes are useless when the mind is blind”
African Proverb
Things are not what they seem, first mpression deceives many. Photo by Ilin Serguey via freepik.com
The truth is not the truth anymore. Video games aren’t real life. Gambling isn’t really investing. Social media isn’t really social. The news isn’t real facts anymore but more like a propaganda machine.
The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent. The media will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. This is the sort of propaganda tactic that I would call psychological warfare.
Malcolm X
We think that we are living in a peaceful time, but in fact, life is a battlefield. We have a tendency to portray battlefields with imagery of soldiers being stuck in trenches firing at each other or imagery of civilians having to hunker down the basement whilst bombs are being dropped from the sky; some battlefields are not so obvious to spot but they are there, nonetheless. Whether you realize it or not you are living in a world where psychological warfare, information warfare, financial warfare spiritual warfare is a common occurrence.
In life, if you are stuck in your own self-righteous and rigid way of doing things then you will lack the mobility to advance. Stiffness of thoughts originates from an inability to think critically preferring instead to submit yourself to groupthink and an ideology without questioning it. The world is not black and white, there are several shades of grey in between. Things change all the time. What is true today may not be true tomorrow. You don’t need a group, a leader, or some media platform to tell you how to think and how to act. You can think for yourself. Passive non-critical thinkers take a simplistic view of the world. They see things in black and white, as either-or, rather than recognizing a variety of possible understandings. They see questions as yes or no, with no subtleties. They fail to see linkages and complexities. They fail to recognize related elements. They take their facts as the only relevant ones. They take their perspectives as the only sensible ones. They consider their goal as the only valid one.
Don’t let people put you into a box and stick a label on it, because that makes you predictable, vulnerable, and controllable. Be your own person, be curious about what’s going on, ask questions, spot all the inconsistencies. If you know how to observe, listen, think and act accordingly, you become a dangerous person.
“I’d rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.”
Unknown author
No one wants to hear this, but we are all being mind-controlled, and the truth is not true anymore. Where does human behavior come from? Behavior comes from our perception of an event or a situation. Where does perception come from? Perception comes from information received, be it from personal experience, newspaper or media. Controlling human perception can therefore become a weapon used to control what people think. The best way to do this would be to filter or censor the type of information that the public receives, or by using deceptive tactics such as subterfuge, propaganda, or misinformation to make the public believe something that is not true.
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.
George Orwell
Life is not what it seems, first impression deceives many, the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.
DDI Chat – Personal Growth – One-to-one Chat with Joanne Reed
In addition to publishing my articles on my website, I have also been publishing on Medium. I have been working closely for the past months with Data-Driven Investor (DDI) Publication. DDI has recently launched a new marketplace/platform where people can book a paid one-to-one session with an expert of their choice. DDI asked me to join their panel of advisors/experts in the Leadership, Coaching, and Personal Growth category. Here is my profile. If you wish to book a one-to-one chat with me you can do so on this platform.
Don't put a label on me - Photo by Yarruta via freepik.com
Don’t Put a Label on Me. Don’t put me into a box and stick a label on it before you even get the chance to know me. I am not the same person I was when I was 20, 30, 40 years old. I am the sum total of my genetics, my upbringing, but also the books I read, the countries I traveled to, the ups and downs that came on my path. I can be reliable and predictable and also spontaneous and unpredictable. I respect people and choose not to worship them. I am a giver but I need to give myself enough time and space to advance my interests too. I am nice and lovely, but I can be dangerous too. Today I can decide to be as exuberant and as colorful as I want and tomorrow, I can decide to be as dull as the grey sky if I feel like it. I don’t gossip, but I read and write. I am all of that and more and a constant work-in-progress. So please, don’t put a label on me.
Don’t put a label on me. The problem with stereotypes.
Don’t put a label on me – Photo by Yarruta via freepik.com
A stereotype is defined as a simplification of reality, a rigid categorizing – and often discriminatory – representation. A stereotype is a fixed, overgeneralized belief about a particular group or class of people. By stereotyping, we infer that a person has a whole range of characteristics and abilities that we assume all members of that group have.
Stereotypes are like air, invisible but always present.
Unknown Author
For example, saying that women have no sense of direction, that girls suck at math or that football is a man’s sport, are stereotypes. Stereotypes can be positive or negative. Negative stereotypes about women and minority groups are easy to spot, more pernicious are the positive ones, such as men are not in touch with their emotions, black people are good athletes. They don’t seem so pernicious because their content is complementary, but stereotypes are bad even when they are good.
“The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
Adichi Chimaamanda
Stereotypes can be linked to any type of cultural membership, such as nationality, religion, gender, race, or age, but it is important to note that there is a difference between cultural generalizations and stereotypes. Cultural generalizations allow us to understand the patterns of cultures to which one belongs (nation, age, gender, etc…) and it provides the basis on which one can understand other cultures. Cultural generalizations involve categorizing members of the same group as having similar characteristics. Generalizations are flexible and allow for the incorporation of new cultural information. They are a type of hypothesis or guess, of what we expect to encounter when we interact with a certain culture; and this is a good thing.
Generalization is a concept that is flexible and can subsequently lead to increased cultural awareness and thereby improve intercultural relationships. Generalizations become stereotypes when all members of a group are categorized as having the same characteristics. Stereotypes are typically inflexible and resistant to new information. They can, and often do lead to prejudice and intentional or unintentional discrimination. Cultural stereotypes do not allow for individual differences and interfere with efforts to understand an individual on a personal level.
Stereotypes make us lazy and encourage nonchalant judgment because we assume things about people based on stereotypes. It drives and nourishes racism, sexism, and all form of discrimination. I have a strong aversion to labels and being put into a box and I don’t allow people to do that to me. As soon as someone puts a label on you or throw you into a specific box, you lose your identity as a unique and free individual who may or may not fit into that stereotype, and who is free to be whoever they want to be.
Don’t put a label on me. The problem with being put into a box.
Don’t put a label on me – Photo by Yarruta via freepik.com
The problem with being put into a box with a label on it is that it considerably restricts your freedom to think and act the way you want. We are all unique and different from each other. What makes us different is not the color or our skin or our geography, it is the fact that there isn’t another person like us anywhere else. All around us, there are spheres of authority always dictating what we should do, how we should act, and what we ought not to do. Aside from the formal structure like laws, there are also informal powers dictating our actions lifestyles, speech, thought patterns, education, cultural upbringing, religion, politics, etc… This invisible current forces us to travel a certain path, act a certain way, and be a certain type of person. Much of our individualistic tendencies do not develop as freely as we think because we have to conform to societal expectations of ourselves and stay well within the groupthink model.
The next question you should ask yourself is who has an interest in putting people into a box and stick a label on it? People who seek power and control do thrive on sticking a label on you. Because it is easier to control people this way. Once you belong to a certain box you are expected to walk on a straight and narrow line. Venturing outside that path is frown upon. Dissenting views and actions are not allowed because dissent is being viewed as being disloyal to the group. Nowadays if your thoughts and ideas are not in line with the rest of the group you will have to face the new social media Thought Police, because the chance is you are going to get canceled and censored. From a difference of opinion, you can quickly move to fragments of intolerance to violent factions. And just like that you have a 1984-Dystopian-type of society where it is not very pleasant to live in and where Big Brother is watching you all the time with the Thought Police ready to storm in and take you away.
This phenomenon is very much into your face in the political arena, where everything is partisan, and where groupthink ideas are shoved down your throat. The ideas of the group are sacrosanct even if they go against your personal interest because the group knows what’s best for you. When you submit to the group you acquiesce to everything that the group asks you to do. You don’t have to use your ears, your mouth, or your brain anymore. The group tells you where to look and what to see. And if you dare to look the other way and start questioning things, they tell you what you are seeing is not what you are seeing and they proceed to interpret what is going on for you.
One way to free ourselves from the shackle of societal restrictions that impede the originality and flexibility of each person would be to develop our individualism and sense of freedom. Freedom of expression is the lifeblood and cornerstone of a free society, without the freedom to think and express ourselves freely, there is no free society. So, we’d better start thinking for ourselves quickly before it becomes illegal. Don’t get all romantic about your ideas or the ideas that the group promotes. You are not married to those ideas. Some ideas are good and others not so good. Stay free to adhere to the ideas that are congruent with your outlook in life and toss aside anything that makes you uncomfortable.
People should be able to stand for what they think is right. They should be able to fight for what is honorable and acceptable and they should have the freedom to reject what is slimy and unacceptable. The problem these days is that everyone believes that they hold the absolute truth of the matter; except that no one can legitimately claim to have such clarity of mind that they know the absolute truth. Truth is a very fluid concept, what’s true today may not be true tomorrow.
Things change all the time. It is perfectly fine to have strong convictions about this and that, but you should do this with humility. You should hold those convictions and make them contingent on whatever facts, data, arguments, life experience, etc… that come your way with the result that your original convictions can be shaken and made less potent.
You can stand your ground and be open-minded enough to seek common ground. And, don’t try to put a label on me, because I won’t let you.
DDI Chat – Personal Growth – One-to-one Chat with Joanne Reed
In addition to publishing my articles on my website, I have also been publishing on Medium. I have been working closely for the past months with Data-Driven Investor (DDI) Publication. DDI has recently launched a new marketplace/platform where people can book a paid one-to-one session with an expert of their choice. DDI asked me to join their panel of advisors/experts in the Leadership, Coaching, and Personal Growth category. Here is my profile. If you wish to book a one-to-one chat with me you can do so on this platform.
Stop asking for permission when you don't have to. Photo by Wayhome studio via freepik.com
To seek or not to seek permission? I say, stop asking for permission when you don’t have to.
From the day we are born, we spend our life asking permission for everything. It starts with our parents, our teachers, our boss, our spouse, or our leader, and it goes on and on. I say, stop asking for permission when you don’t have to. We grow up with a host of ingrained ideas about what we’re permitted to do or not do. As a child, we have to ask permission from our parents to ride our bikes to town. When in school, we have to raise our hands and ask the teacher permission to speak or to go to the toilet. At work, we have to ask our boss and HR department permission to go on sick leave when we are feeling unwell.
Being compliant, obedient, and asking for permission might serve us well in a civilized society as we learn how to control our wants and desires; but the irony and eventual quiet tragedy of that is that in some instances, our wants and desires might not have a possessor, a licensor or a permit giver. It may lie outside the realms of ownership. There may be broad indifference to whether we act in some way or not. There may be no law and no one to be upset by our move. The desired thing in question might just belong to whoever dares to step forward and take it. There’s no formal procedure, it’s just the courage to imagine it could be yours. The reason why certain ideas haven’t happened isn’t necessarily because they are silly, but because there is a strong and always surprising lack of originality in human conduct.
We are creatures of tradition, systems, rules, and regulations and we are conditioned to think that we need permission for everything and to act within the confines of what is permitted. For most of human history, it was customary to believe that permission to do anything had to be sought from the gods and superior forces that governed the cosmos. We may assume we don’t share this primitive characteristic, but our underlying attitude – in its essential form – suggests we do. We don’t quite know whom we are asking, and we can’t say precisely what approval looks like, but in an archaic part of our minds, we’re still waiting to be given endorsement for our most cherished plans. I say, stop asking permission when you don’t have to.
We want to know from some potent but undefined source that if we act this way, we’ll still be good people, that we won’t be punished that this is allowed, that we won’t bring retribution on ourselves or trouble from the Universe. Our culture is fascinated by inventors and artists who struck out on their own, went strongly against the tide of current opinion, and was eventually vindicated even if only after their deaths. We get excited by the stories of their lives because we unconsciously find in them something that’s missing in us: a bold indifference to permission, a reminder of our lack of courage and timidity.
Stop asking for permission when you don’t have to. You don’t need permission to think the way you think
Stop asking for permission when you don’t have to. Photo by Wayhome studio via freepik.com
In the Dystopian Novel 1984 written by George Orwell, the Thought Police (Thinkpol) are the secret police of the superstate of Oceania, who discover and punish Though Crime, personal and political thoughts unapproved by the regime. Thinkpol uses criminal psychology and omnipresent surveillance via informers, telescreens cameras, and microphones to monitor the citizens of Oceania and arrest all those who have committed Thought Crime in challenge to the status quo authority of the Party and the regime of Big Brother.
Democratic societies assert unequivocally that freedom of expression is part of our human rights. The First Amendment of the US Constitution largely protects Americans from the creepy authoritarian systems found in 1984 and so does the Human Rights Act; Article 10 of the Human Rights Act protects your right to hold your own opinions and express them freely without government interference. This includes the right to express your views aloud (for example through public protest and demonstrations) or through published articles, books or leaflets, television or radio broadcasting, works of arts, the internet, and social media.
Sadly, the scenario envisaged in Orwell’s book 1984 seems to be more reality than fiction. The new Thought Police are Big Tech and the rise of Cancel Culture. We will have to decide as a collective if seeking conformity of thought or language through public shaming is healthy or suffocating. Condoning the censorship road that is being taken by Big Tech is likely to be the road that takes us straight to that place called Tyranny.
“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing. When you see, that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favor. When you see that men get richer more easily by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them but protect them against you. When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – You may know that your society is doomed” Extract from Atlas shrugged Ayn Rand (1905 to 1982) – Novelist, philosopher, and screenwriter.
Ayn Rand
History is full of examples ofcrazy things you won’t believe used to be legal, slavery being one of them. We tend to think of the law as an obvious truth, the reality is that society pretty much makes things up as we go along. Thank goodness, we can rely on Natural Law which is a superior law to the Law of the State to save us from tyranny. Some big thinkers spent time thinking about this concept.
Aristotle is often said to be the father of Natural Law. The Natural Law thesis holds that if a human law fails to be backed up by decisive reason, then it is not a proper law at all. This is captured in the maxim “an unjust law is no law at all”. In his treatise Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes expressed a view of Natural Law as a general rule, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or takes away the means of preserving the same. According to Emanuel Kant, in a free society, each individual must be able to pursue their goals however they see fit as long as their actions conform to principles governed by reason.
Thomas More’s refusal to acknowledge King Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon lead him to be imprisoned and put on trial for treason. During his last remarks to court – defending himself in his trial for treason and knowing in advance his fate of being found guilty for his refusal to assert in writing that the King was the Head of the Church, he made the following arguments to the jury :
“Some men say the Earth is flat and some men say the Earth is round. But if it is flat, could Parliament make it round? And if it is round, could the King’s command flatten it?”
Thomas More
What Thomas More so eloquently expressed during his trial was that the Laws of Nature will force the government to exercise a certain restraint. There is a limit to what a government and/or parliament can legitimately do. That limit is set by Natural Law. Extract from Chapters 7 & 10 of This Is Your Quest.
You don’t need permission to be enlightened or to act with reason
Stop asking for permission when you don’t have to. Photo by Wayhome studio via freepik.com
The 18th century was a period known as the Enlightenment, another term used in the Age of Reason. The concept of a social contract, limited government, consent of the governed, and the separation of power started making an impact on people. New beliefs started spreading such as “all men are created equal” and “a king has no divine rights.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right in 1762. His thinking was that humans are essentially free, but over time they become less and less free because of the mere fact that they live in a society. It is only natural in society to see a ruler emerge and to attract followers, who would happily give up their liberty to be under the ruler’s protection. The question that Jean-Jacques Rousseau asked himself was: “How can we be free and live together without being overpowered by the force and coercion of others? The answer he came up with was: “through a social contract.”
A social contract is a process whereby people will come together and agree to form a new single body called the Sovereign. The Sovereign’s mission is to act for the good of all the people and its critical element is the element of reciprocity. The Sovereign is committed to the good of the individuals who constitute it and each individual is likewise committed to the good of the whole. In the American colonies, more and more people were being influenced by this concept and started to believe that they weren’t receiving their end of the bargain and, gradually started to think that it was their duty to rebel against and disobey laws that were viewed unjustly. The American Revolution began in 1775; the root cause of the revolution can be found in the way Great Britain treated its colony, as some kind of faraway outpost, whose sole purpose was to provide for the needs of Great Britain, and for the American people to be subject to and subservient to the will and power of the Crown.
So, please stop asking for permission when you don’t have to. There is a whole raft of things that fall outside the realms of ownership. Not all our wants and desires need to have a possessor, a licensor, or a permit giver.
DDI Chat – Personal Growth – One-to-one Chat with Joanne Reed
In addition to publishing my articles on my website, I have also been publishing on Medium. I have been working closely for the past months with Data-Driven Investor (DDI) Publication. DDI has recently launched a new marketplace/platform where people can book a paid one-to-one session with an expert of their choice. DDI asked me to join their panel of advisors/experts in the Leadership, Coaching, and Personal Growth category. Here is my profile. If you wish to book a one-to-one chat with me you can do so on this platform.
I wrote the first draft of this article – A story about freedom within the confine of Réunion Island – in our little hideaway cabin up the hills where my youngest daughter and I spent our week of quarantine (called septaine here as it only lasts 7 days). The year 2020-2021 would be remembered as the year of lock-down, confinement, curfew, quarantine. Never in our modern history has our freedom of movement been so restrained, albeit justified for public health reasons. This is not an article about the pros and cons of restrictions imposed for public health reasons, it is a story about freedom within the confine of Réunion Island; it is the story of some brave souls from Réunion Island who fought in the most admirable manner to free themselves from their shackles. This article is also the perfect excuse for me to introduce you to Réunion Island, where I was born and where my family lives.
A story about Reunion
Réunion island, or in French ‘Ile de la Réunion’, is a smallish island situated east of Madagascar and about 175km southwest of Mauritius. It’s a volcanic island, like Hawaii, with a mountainous interior and a population of about 1 million people. If you haven’t heard of it, that’s not unusual, it’s typically only known by sailors and stamp collectors. The island is famous for a number of things including the first Euro Transaction, occasional – but very heavy rain, and one of the world’s most active volcanoes.
A story about the First Euro transaction
Réunion Island is a French Department and because of its geographical position is the most easterly part of the eurozone. The Island was the first European territory to handle the Euro currency when it was introduced in 2002. The mayor of St Denis (the Capital city) purchased a kilo of lychees after a brief barter with a local stallholder.
A story about Rainfall
For the most part, Réunion Island has a mild tropical climate, but it is in the hurricane belt (here it’s called, cyclone belt) and when it rains, oh boy, it rains. Réunion has set a number of records for the highest rainfall measured including the official 24-hour rainfall record (1,825 mm or 71.85”) during a tropical storm in 1952 and the 48-hour rainfall record (2,467 mm, or 97.13”) at Cilaos, which has sadly – or happily- now been beaten. Have you ever wonder what is the difference between hurricanes and cyclones? It is just a question of geography. A tropical storm system is called a hurricane in the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific and is called a cyclone in the Northern Indian Ocean.
A story about a very active volcano!
Life is an adventure. Out and about with an active Volcano in my sight – Photo taken by Alize Reed – Piton de la Fournaise – Réunion Island
Piton de la Fournaise, or Furnace Peak in English, is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, along with Kilauea in the Hawaiian Islands, Stromboli, and Etna in Italy, and Mount Erebus in Antarctica. The volcano is a major tourist attraction and offers some excellent hiking and scenery.
Since 2010, the Piton de la Fournaise has been a member of a very exclusive club as one of the natural assets listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for their outstanding universal value. It is an honor that it shares with the island’s other volcano, the Piton des Neiges which culminates at 3070 meters and which is a dormant volcano. For the past 10 years, the Piton de la Fournaise has erupted on average every 9 months, fortunately without endangering the islanders. Not many volcanoes can boast such exuberant activity.
The latest eruption of the Piton de la Fournaise started on 9th April 2021 and is still going on as I speak. I went for a hike with some of my local friends to the volcano site to have a closer look. We saw the fumes coming out of some craters, we couldn’t see the flow of lava from our viewpoint but we were told that there was a tunnel of lava still running underneath. The whole volcano site is surreal, very out of this world kind of scenery.
A story about freedom
Coming back to the main topic of this article – a story about freedom within the confine of Réunion Island, slavery was used widely in the French colonies in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. The French slave trade began in the 15th century, not for use within mainland France, although France’s northern ports were heavily used to trade and ship slaves, but in the French colonies, where sugar accounted for 80% of exports. Slaves from Africa were brought into the colonies to cultivate sugar cane. Regulatory measures constantly governed the supervision of slaves, the control of their labor, their movements, any possible activities by them outside the plantations, and events in their personal lives.
These regulations allowed extensive freedom to plantation owners regarding the range of punishment they could administer to their slaves. Slaves were subjected to physical and emotional abuse on a daily basis. The phenomenon of resistance on the part of the slaves, individually or collectively, has been the focus of relatively little research. Yet, slaves in the French colonies resisted their plight in the most varied and admirable ways.
They attempted to escape on a regular basis (a phenomenon known in French as “marronnage” escaping the plantations in coastal areas to find refuge in the mountains where they remained hidden in the hope that the plantation owner would eventually give up looking for them. The word “marron” originates from the Spanish word “cimarron” which means “to escape.”
On Réunion Island, historical accounts reveal stories of the Black- Marrons taking great risks to escape to the mountains, preferring to live as free men in precarious conditions rather than staying at the plantation under the bondage of a brutal plantation owner. Those who successfully escaped established semi-permanent camps in the mountains. Once a small group of trusted companions had settled and had organized themselves, they conducted regular raids on the plantations to steal weapons, tools, food, seeds, and farm animals (chickens); they also brought back with them their women and children.
Eventually, the Black-Marrons successfully managed to grow their own food, raise farm animals and create a new community of free men, women, and children up in the mountains. The plantation owners were terrified of these raids which were becoming more and more frequent. They started manhunts for the Black-Marrons and offered hunters 30 Livres per “catch” dead or alive. Hunters had to bring as proof of a “catch” (in order to claim their prize) the severed left-hand of the Black-Marron they had just killed. Hunters were free to capture or kill men, women, and children alike. Despite this brutal repression against the Black-Marrons not all of them were captured or killed and the most resilient managed to keep living as free men and women in the mountains until slavery was abolished.
The Black-Marrons became legends in their own right; nowadays, if you go hiking on Réunion Island, you will come across several mountain peaks that are named after them, amongst them, Dimitile, Cimendef, Mafate, and Anchaing. One of the most notorious of those Black-Marrons was a slave known by the name of Cimendef. After his escape to the mountains, Cimendef created a new identity for himself. Originally from Madagascar, he created a name from the words “tsi” meaning “non” in Malagasy and “mandevi” meaning “slave” – so, Cimendef means “non-slave.” Through his new name, he wanted to show everyone his will to live as a free man. Slavery was abolished in France and its former colonies in 1848.
There is a policy of organized forgetfulness of the past that suits the agenda of the rulers, the people in power. History is written from the perspective of the victors and not the oppressed, whose role in their own liberation is often forgotten or downplayed. Historical accounts have found a way of denying centuries of resistance by slaves and the role they played in resisting oppression and pursuing their freedom. Historical accounts tend to attribute the happy resolution of a very shameful episode in history to a particular government or piece of legislation; while forgetting the acts of resistance that were carried out by the slaves themselves and the oppressed, who fought bravely for their inalienable right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is worth pointing out here that despite what most people believe slavery should not be automatically associated with ethnicity. Slavery has existed since the beginning of time; the color of someone’s skin was not a key factor to determine whether that person could find himself in the unfortunate position of being a slave. Those who became slaves were chosen because of their vulnerability compared to another dominant group and not because of the color of their skin. Since the beginning of times, Europeans enslaved other Europeans, Asians enslaved other Asians, Africans enslaved other Africans and Arabs enslaved other Arabs. A slave is a person who is the chattel or property of another. The etymology of the word “slave” finds its origin in the medieval Latin word “sclavus,” originally “Slav” because of the many Slavs sold into slavery by conquering people.
Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century. People of every race and color were enslaved and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the ottoman empire, decades after American blacks were freed. The region of WestAfrica was one of the great slave-trading regions of the continent before, during, and after the white man arrived. It was the Africans who enslaved their fellow Africans, selling some of these slaves to Europeans or to Arabs and keeping others for themselves. In East Africa, Arabs were the leading slave raiders, ranging over an area larger than all of Europe; slavery is often and wrongly associated with ethnicity and skin color. This practice was an accepted fact of the society of the time on the basis that the strongest has the right of appropriation over the weakest.
Thomas Sowell
This article is dedicated to all the people who have been oppressed and have suffered injustice and who have found the courage to resist oppression and somehow free themselves from their shackles.
For a more detailed analysis of this subject, I invite you to check Chapter 7 of my book “This Is Your Quest.”
