Conform?
The deeper we go the less I understand. I wish that my Mom and her clear mind of about 2005 or so was here so I could ask her what is it she thinks feeds the extremism.
My head spins and I get that feeling in or near my heart that sometimes makes it way up to my throat, then out of my eyes.
It feels like an arrogance to a degree that is consequential, indescribable and void of description or definition.
In high school I think my Mom worried that I was on a path to extreme fundamental ideology. I wasn’t. But I guess it could have happened. I soon recognized in myself what I was not comfortable with. It was the extreme, the judgement of others that I had no right to judge and the arrogance that I thought it was my place to judge. That somehow because I was faithful, went to church, bible study or void of ‘sins’ that I was somehow superior and entitled to that judgement. I was not. That question ‘why’ was to prominent in my head and I asked it often. Something my Mom loved and it drove her crazy. I guess it’s one thing to have a child ask why over and over again, but a 20 year old?
And as I have realized in the last 10 years or so of required daily medication, I have absolutely no addictive qualities or tendencies. So a cultish space I would not be. That belief that it just takes three weeks, 21 days to create a habit, yeah nope. Not me. Lack of motivation and what I’ve always considered an abstract brain, to maintain a single train of thought, single or otherwise, an attention span, interests, curiosity, grief, contentment, introversion, solitude, too much time to think? Or maybe my aversion to redundancy is so deep seeded, that even remember to take a pill every morning for my health, even after 2 alarms, I’ll still not take it.
When I settle in and decided to go back to school in 1986 the liberal arts aspect of Kansas City Art Institute introduced me to more literature that I had been exposed to, Although I knew of most of it, I hadn’t read much of it yet. It provided me with classes in Western Thought, Eastern Thought, Jungian Thought and Philosophy of Religion. Philosophy.
When I think about this word conform it is opposite, diametrically opposed to and counter to anything I know or understand. I strive daily to bring my privileged existence to this world humbly with the values instilled in me by my parents and the Minister I listened to every Sunday for nearly 18 years. This statement does not fit into what I was taught.
And today, does not fit into how we should be as a nation. We have no right, would, should never have that right. As just one of a few billion unique people in the world, I see no one in this world who has the right to say this let alone someone with potential platform to put it into action. This is limiting and restrictive in a way that leaves no room for respect, love and compassion. Not to mention a level of arrogance that the Bible speaks against. Opposition to pride, grace to the humble.