'Less and less room for individual expression that flies in the face of mainstream thinking'

The central pillar of Acceptance is in learning to see the world as it is, free from my own biases and prejudices, starting with seeing myself clearly.

Seeing my way and questioning my own motivations, beliefs and morality is a daily practice and one we can all do.

It allows us to think critically about ourselves and the world and ask questions of ourselves that help all people grow and evolve in our thinking if asked the right way.

The more we verbalise an idea the more weight we give it until it becomes real. We can actually will an idea into life and that presents us with enormous potential.

Whether that potential is for our good or otherwise is up to our innate disposition to see the world in a certain way. If we see the world’s potential positively then our tendency is to see the better outcome, the good in humanity and the truer that becomes.

I often think that life might be described like this, “In the beginning were the People. Then they encountered other People. They decided to call these other people The Enemy. Things might have gone differently if they had called them More People, but they didn’t and here we are”.

The natural state of our ego driven animal instinct is to fear the unknown because it can get you killed. The problem with that is we intrinsically fear difference.

The task of our species as evolved thinking beings is to transcend that fear, to know it and soothe it and tell it that difference is alright. Our ability or inability to do that will ultimately decide if we become The People, More People or The Enemy.

Our current fragmented humanity isn’t an accident. World views that divorce people from the deeper commonality, that common good, the basic morality of the global tribe that says the good of the many IS the good of the one, has been eroded, creating flat pack, two dimensional people who can only see their way as right and everyone else’s as wrong.

There has ceased to be a love of nuance, a love of difference as flavour is added to the world and we are increasingly left with polarisation and intolerance.

We are in fact in danger of becoming so tolerant that it breeds intolerance.

The more left we go the closer we get to the right. We espouse freedom of the individual but nowadays that seems to come as long as the individual views the world exactly as we do.

There is less and less room for individual expression that flies in the face of mainstream thinking.

Debate is censured by the cancel culture and the very idea of holding an opposing view is looked upon as heresy. This my friends, breeds censorship and curtails the very idea of freedom that we hold so dear. To counteract this trend will take generations if we aren’t awake to it now.

The very idea that I’m not free to disagree with a popular opinion or even a prevailing truth as a dissenting voice is dangerous. To get to the point where society sees freedom as tolerant of diversity in all its forms and its glory is something we should look to sooner than later.

The revolution in our thinking will not be televised, will be quite possibly vilified and that’s how we know it’s the right way to act.

Our mainstream media is a reflection, a mirror of who we are and so it will mimic our values, both good and bad.

When we see events and behaviours worldwide that promote a culture where our freedom to speak is confined to speaking only the truths that are deemed appropriate then we are walking in a minefield.

Acceptance isn’t just fluffy and wonderful and personal.

It’s the ability to see what’s right and to live in a way that espouses those values, all the while respecting the views of others as they follow their path, even when I don’t agree with their view. “I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the last your right to say it,” is a quote attributed to Voltaire that we would do well to remember these days. Life is diverse.

People are diverse.

We can differ and disagree and still maintain civility and understanding if we choose to do so. I realise this is tempered with the admonition that hateful speech or attitudes are never acceptable but there is a difference in preventing someone from spewing bile and in stopping free expression just because it doesn’t agree with you.

To practice true Acceptance is to see us all as one, to see our diversities as unique and to learn tolerance of attitudes that are completely different to our own while also seeing that there is a balance to be struck between individual freedom and the good of all.

The pendulum swings from left to right and back again but it has to return to the centre every time.

Maybe we need to stop the clock and see that there is no left and right, just the aspiration to ascend or the tendency to descend.

Our survival and collective evolution depends on which way we look.