Year 9

Friday marked 8 years since my big surgery.  I’m now into the 9th year since I lost most of my innards, and very very grateful to be here.  There are days that seem very mundane, and I think that maybe I should be doing more productive and exciting things, then I remind myself that life isn’t a checklist of excitement, and if we did live in a world of non-stop thrills, we’d never appreciate them.  So I have learned to be appreciative of “ordinary” things that make me happy — like cuddling the tiny dictator (that’s how I spend many nights and early mornings!) or relaxing with Don, or liming with my friends.  All things for which I’m thankful to have had another 8 years to enjoy.  I’ll continue to pray for many more!  

So I’m a fairly easy-going type, and I don’t tend to get worked up and angry easily.  I believe that I’m fairly reasonable, and can understand the points of view of a wide range of personalities, and I can adjust and accommodate to them without getting bent out of shape.  Apparently that’s a talent that’s particularly useful when dealing with people of different cultures, and I’m proud to say that I have friends from a diverse number of countries and cultures, who speak over 100 languages combined.  (I don’t add a lot to that group; I speak passable French and basic Spanish with a smattering of phrases from several others.  Mostly I can greet and thank people in about a dozen languages.  A leftover from my days leading one of the diversity networks at the office.). All that to say that when it comes to the many, many discussions on rights I tend to be on the more liberal (small “l”) side of the discussion.  So when I was asked, by a very conservative religious person what I thought about “2 men wanting to marry” I said, “Why shouldn’t they?” And then dealt with being consigned to hell for my anti-religious views.

This week, I saw an article headlined: “breaking the colonial mindset of photography.”  I skimmed it to gather that the writer wants to “stop the oppression that’s inherent in talking about photography.”  And that was where my mind shorted out.  I do understand that colonialism has left some long scars across history, and there are some behaviours and ideas that it has left that cause pain.  Colonial, imperialistic thinking underlies many of the ills that plague us, like classism, racism, sexism, etc.  But photography?  C’mon!  The article mentions that words that we use like, “shooting [a photo]”, “subject” and “capturing [an image]” are all bad, m’kay, and make us evil colonial overlords.  (Sarcasm font needed there!). I’m struggling with those concepts, because it seems to me to be overreacting.  Yes, words have power, and we do need to be careful not to hurt people with our choice of words, but I honestly don’t see that these terms are as problematic as the writer wants me to believe.  I think that there are far more significant issues to tackle (is that word allowed?  It seems violent 🙄) than finding a substitute for “photo shoot.”  

Any hope that I had that this was satire went out the window when I saw that this was being presented as a series of talks for the low price of US$400.  Although, if a fool and his money are soon parted, I won’t stand in the way of people who want to throw away $400 to potentially find that they’ve been punked… I’m in support of making this world a fairer, more equitable place, where people are able to progress based on their ability, and where they have access to jobs, food, healthcare, education, or any of the necessities of life.  I agree with not insulting people needlessly, but I also think that people are intelligent enough to separate context from the language that’s used.  So could we, do you think, start applying some critical thinking and not react to every word that might be used in different contexts?  And while on the subject of critical thinking — or, no.  That needs the soapbox, and I’ll have the little dictator even more on my lap pushing the iPad away!  Good night all!