sad.

Today I found out that my cousin's FB and Instagram page were deleted.

She recently passed. 

Realizing this made me feel so sad!!

I felt like wow, how easily it seems social media can erase a person. 

I'm sad because a lot of great memories were shared and linked to her page. 

And I miss her a lot, I can still almost hear her still, sense her presence. 

And I do not want to forget how she looked and the time we spent together or even just her life in general. 

I talked to a friend of mine today about it. She thought the opposite. That she would like the same if she passes, for her social media to be erased. She felt it would cause pain to her family. 

I guess people all grieve differently. 

Today I visited my folks. I started to look at old hard copy albums 2008, 2016 (ones made from digital & online pics). My sis-in-law's mother was in one of these albums. She also recently passed. My mom said she cannot bear to look at it because she said it will make her cry and it is too painful. 

I guess for the past how many years people no longer make picture albums and mostly have a pile of never ending digital photos either scattered on their phone or in a cloud. Those albums for the public to see are now just in "social media". There is a sense of impersonal distance with that term. This now common way of sharing memories and experiences. 

I miss the old albums. The hard copy of these memories. Something a bit more tangible. 

Not to live in the past but to look back fondly on it. 

I guess it is there to also be reminded to cherish the moment right now, almost capturing the essence of the time and place and feeling, and to remember it and keep it close, photograph or not. 

How to disagree with someone....

welp...  this is certainly hard to do. I know first hand.

https://thelifecoachschool.com/podcast/319/

I like this lady though.

I wonder how family members/ friends feel right now by sitting in their anger toward each other because of their judgement about them due to their different beliefs? Do they really feel they hate that person? If they do, how does this hate feel?

I know I hate feeling hate, even if I do feel it. But it doesn't feel good, just this heavy upset, saddness and anxiety sitting on my chest to carry around...

Yea... this is certainly hard to do. I'll see if its possible.... seems a better option than feeling crappy though.

Just came across this quote today:

"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."
- Aristotle (384-322BC)

I like it.

Choose Peace over power.

https://www.wikihow.com/Live-in-Peace



Just putting this here.
(the part about forced coercion and resentment is very interesting)

(***disclosure, I am talking about differences in views, not when active violence is happening in the moment)

Gez louise.

A few times this week in my observations of others I felt...."Whooa, hold up! What are you doing?! Why would you do that?"

It seems like its a volatile time around me with me seeing people passionately disagree with in-laws , coworkers, friends, companions,  family and even strangers.

Conversation and communication is good. No communication can lead to chaos. But its not always easy. Not even easy to express your own opinions clearly let alone listen to other peoples opinions sometimes.

What I notice is that most of the time people choose power over peace.

They feel there is a wrong, and will aim to fix it, no matter the fatalities along the way.

As much as you want to correct it right this instant, and just right the wrong now or throw the baby out with the bath water, as much as you want to correct a wrong, is how much sometimes strongly the other is convinced that you are the wrong that needs correcting.

Even how detrimental the views are and the consequences - when it comes down to that moment - its an opinion. Just an opinion *** (see disclosure) . Not to belittle it or invalidate it. Everyone has their own experiences to back up this opinion they hold so dear.
But its just that. And because we all are different, we are bound to have different opinions.
But if the whole exchange begins to brew resentment, anger, hurt, bitterness, violence and forever damaged relationships.... why? Why try to convince or force the other to accept yours? If they are not forcing you to change how to live your life, how you think, how you treat others in the end, right in front of you, why not choose peace? Why stir it up forcefully and damage the peace and relationship, instead of just having them see things for themselves, learn for themselves, be open to listening which is a two way street....

If they post something on FB that bothers you and you assume the worst in that person. Why say anything when you know their minds will not change if you say something? Even just delete or block it out. If the way they live their life in their home does not affect how you live your life at home, why force your opinion in their home?

Less vaguely for example, I do not agree I need to cover up my head as a woman or my face to be looked at as a respectable woman. But if I go into their home/ country and this is their form of respect in their country, I will do it. Because that is their home.
It is a minor inconvenience to me when I go there, but in the bigger picture, it keeps the peace and they appreciate it. They are not telling me what to do in my own home or how to live my life.
In the end, it shows them you value their relationship over forcing your differing opinions/values.

New Word Alert! (and another interesting DOC)

It has been a while since I added to my Jossipedia dictionary  (of my wonderfully creative made up words.)

I watched a really eye opening documentary last night.

I say eye opening because yes, going into it I was like wow this is Bull shit.

Seeing the misogynistic titles in the beginning I thought, why even continue watching this crap...

But by the end of it, the message was clear and in line with the wonderful documentary I saw the other night (see last post), King in the Wilderness.

You cannot defeat the enemy by becoming the enemy.

One form of injustice, does not make up for another injustice. Two wrongs do not make a right.... I can go on...

The bf has always brought up the "other point of view" in any of my statements, which can be kinda exhausting and I chalked it up sometimes to him just wanting to antagonize my view points.

But I hear him now.

I believe this holds true now ever more.... where media has a huge impact on how we view things, and then the huge social pressure that comes along with it.

You have to reallllllllllly learn to discern the minute yet strong messages out there and say - is it fair?
In learning how people respond to being hurt, there is not one correct way of doing so. We must be careful to not dismiss and invalidate the hurt they feel. But we know one response to being hurt can be more productive than the other. Especially in our ever polarized society.

At the moment I am on a binge of just empathizing, learning the experiences of other people. And I am not finished yet, nor may ever be, but my new word/ phrase has come about from this.

ready for it.......

Inclusivism Censorship

It's a phrase I guess. I'm just stepping back right now and admiring my creation of a new term hahaha.

wait...

Inclusivity Censorship.

Maybe that sounds better.

Kinda wordy.... well that's what I came up with.

This is what is happening. This term to me is negative. It further divides. And damages full respect and equality of human rights.

I feel that this is important to avoid for any movement. Even in line with the late Martin Luther King Jrs views on collaboration and Unifying everyone. Instead of dividing. His rejection of violence and rejection of the term Black Power. The outcome desired is equality, but the means to the way can instead increase division and cause more harm. When movements are not inclusive. Black Power is the opposite of White Power. But how does it unify people, humans? Isn't that what we want? (Please watch King in the Wilderness).

Anyhow the documentary is called The Red Pill (Different from the movement group called the red pill - eek)

The producer also has a Ted talk : Meeting the Enemy ....but I suggest just watching the movie before the ted talk.

It's sad when we can no longer hear each other out. Even within families. Us or them. Yes or no. With no one listening to the other side. Divisions growing and families and friends divided.
No one questioning if their stance is unifying. It's just become a competition of us and them.
To me, if you find yourself on one end of the polarized spectrum, you are not fighting for unity, you are fighting for your self.

Love via MLK jr

"You cannot defeat the enemy by becoming the enemy"

So key. One can miss it if they don't pay close attention.

"this one young lady came up to Dr. King, just spitting in his face, calling him all kinds of names. And he said You know, you are much too beautiful to be so mean. And when we came back through there, she came out through the crowd again and came up to him and said I'm sorry, I never should have been so rude."

Love.

Just watched King in the Wilderness 2018 .  A movie so worth watching.

Validation

Do not invalidate someone else's experience just because you have not experienced the same. Or even if you feel you have experienced similar, do not invalidate the pain that it has caused them, just because you handled it differently. Maybe you cannot fix it, but the willingness to try or even just to listen and allow them to be heard can make all the difference. Empathy and understanding.

I remember my Gr. 11 Algebra teacher, Mr. Manning. Every time after an exam he would hand out our papers, go over the answers and then have the rest of the class to talk about life.
He opened up the topic to us to choose or whatever was happening in the news at that time.

I liked these conversations a lot because we got to know each other on a different level. In Highschool you had your cliques and you had stereotypes and assumptions of the classmates due to these cliques.
Like "Oh he is just a dumb jock and does not think too much about anything else but sports" or "she is the quiet nerd and had nothing else to say about life issues other than talking about the books" or whatever else we assume because we do not know them personally.
Well these conversations often got us thinking about the bigger picture in society and allowed people to open up about the variety of opinions on a topic without being judged and allowed us to be heard.
Mind you some of the people in class thought it was waste of time, or a silly distraction, or they focused on why are we talking about Seinfeld again? There was always a bonus question about Seinfeld at the end of each exam paper.

One particular topic was that of racism.

 With all that was said among classmates on every different angle Mr Manning said this which somehow stuck in my head. I believe it was after a classmate said "yea I understand what they are going through, but.."

"No matter how anti-racist you feel you are or how much you try to understand and empathize with someone who is black, no matter how many good friends you have that are black or people you know that are black , even if we could somehow change the colour of our skin for a day or more and live in their shoes,  no matter how hard we try to understand or even say we understand.... we will never  ever understand how it feels like to be black. Or any other race which can be targeted for racism. You will never understand how to it is be be born black and grow up black. The best we can do is try to understand and be more conscious about it. But we can never say we fully understand what black people go through."

Listen so people can be heard.