Pablo Picasso said once about abstract art “Many people say they don't like my art because they don't understand it. Well, I don't understand Chinese, but that doesn't mean I don't like [it]”.
We all fit somewhere in the spectrum of life, dull, bright, dark or translucent. Just because we do not understand something, it does not mean that we should disregard it or show contempt, unfortunately we do. We tend to dislike things which are different, some more than others. Our degree of contempt accelerates, depending how different the polarity is.
Things which are not comprehensible to us, start to plague us. Not so surprisingly our level of disapproval starts to grow depending how different something is. Our fear from darkness seeds from the sole reason, our inability to see in the dark. In darkness we are still the same, objects around us stay still but our fear of unknown and loss of control make us anxious. Our demons go away as soon as we turn the lights on. As usual when we can not perceive, we succumb to fear.
Alien ideas, actions and concepts induce different reactions from everyone, some are not affected at all and some shows extreme agitation and some become phobic. It is so easy to detest something, much easier than trying to understand or rather accept the differences. It requires no effort to go with the flow, however, accepting contrast need a conscious effort. So, we decide to follow the same old route lets hate, let’s hate other faiths, beat the gay guy, make fun of how you look, and in fact hate anything which is different.
Recently I read about Tyler Clementi, a promising musician at Rutgers University. Tyler jumped off a bridge after he was targeted for being gay. Clementi was one of many who are bullied everyday for being different. I took care of a victim of hate crime once and it was not pretty. Please spend sometime and view this link, this was sent to me again by my friend from Italy who earlier sent me this post too. Gays and lesbians are one of the many groups who are targeted for being different. History has taught us we do not discriminate in our hatred like we do for our affection.
I am not trying to make a political point nor is this an attempt to undermine any religious belief. My point is the human aspects of this tragedy. Someone lost a loved one just because he was different. You can not harm someone just because you like red and he likes blue. Millions of people are suffering because they either not look like you, worship a different God, have different facial profile or a different skin color. Next time if you decide to go with the flow, take a hard look at yourself and see how different you are from the person next door. It is not about being tolerant; I think this is about acceptance…….you do not have to be like me, I like the way you are.
About the picture: Colors of life.
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