Divisions #DecemberWonderings

To divide is to separate. When we all live on the same planet, right next to each other, why do be separate ourselves? Why is it, that as a human populace we find the need to create divisions that define and separate everyone into separate categories that for some reason cant interact with each other because they are in 'separate boxes?'

                             

Being someone who is female and of a colour (I say this because everyone has a colour, none of us are colourless as we seen to imply when saying 'people of colour' normally) I have had many restrictions and definitions imposed on me from a young age. Luckily, I was brought up in a family who see both genders as equal and capable of (nearly) all the same duties that need to be carried out in life. I grew up surrounded by a multitude of different people, with different origins, backgrounds, life stories, faiths, the list can go on really.

But one thing I never saw as I interacted with them was divisions. I think this is down to how I look at life and view people. The only thing I saw was differences, which were inevitable because no one person is the same and has been through the exact same situations, but this didn’t have to make a divide between me and the other person.

The divisions I am referring to are ones such as culture, which culture you belong. Race, if you’re a certain race you should behave in a certain manner, fulfilling the stereotypes. Gender, just because you’re a gender you have to do and act in a certain way. I believe that the only thing that defines us is what God says about us, and for the non-religious, what they want themselves to be. I don’t believe in labels, I believe in choosing which characteristics and traits you want to define who you are rather than a system or a category that restricts you from being exactly what you want to be.

My challenge for myself is to try and stick to this belief and carrying it out every day. I’m not saying that I don’t create divides myself and sometimes even comply to some stereotypes (though mostly for the fun of it), but I want to be able to say that I don’t purposefully confine myself because of divides that I have placed between me and another person.

Ellah xx