Peace in Difference

In America I grew up thinking my language, my nation's story, and my family's interaction patterns were unique and authoritative above all. As I grew in bodily and mental capacity, I ventured outside those first conclusions handed down (but mostly absorbed) from my family and culture. This is not to say that these narratives or, from whom they were inherited, were or are wrong. It is to say that humans are at our best when we're exploring, and that all exploration is bodily, given that our encountering difference forges new physical pathways, 'grooves', in the brain. These grooves form according to our closest reference points to, or approximations of, the newly encountered thing.

The larger the 'stockpile' of difference within the brain, the more experience the brain has with fitting 'newness' or novelty into familiar symbol, immediately and effectively useful.

This is where the spark of consciousness is most visible. Regardless the catalyst, no matter how different, how bizarre, how seemingly unable a person is to understand or see something as remotely familiar, the brain autonomously tries. Like the lungs pull in air and process it, the brain is always contextualizing automatically. Like breathing, the brain willows the unfamiliar away into connected, utilitarian symbols, fitting them snugly within our most powerful narratives.

Having read a bunch of books is a great start, but unless you are able to see a bigger picture, unless you are able to leap from context to context without pulling a muscle, you'll still be a novice. Perhaps you'll be able to quote things and list off what you 'know'. But, until you can read between the lines, and synthesize data into at least two different sets/narratives, much of what you've read and said is useless. In other words, we often see what we already know. A technical term for this is 'presupposition', a less technical term 'assumption'.

The more isolated our upbringing, the more taught our muscles will be. Muscle only grows with adversity. It's the same with our ability to interact with 'difference' in peace.