Ever write a blog posting only to regret it later? I did, in a way.
A few years ago, back when I was still looking for a girlfriend, I wrote a blog posting about an idea that, although I knew it would never realistically happen, would alter everyone’s perceptions. While I’ll spare you the details, the summary is simple: Make a mandatory day/week/month/whatever across the world where no one could where clothes. (If you’re actually curious what a teenage mind in a grown-up body thinks, here’s the address: http://w2ed.wordpress.com/2006/06/11/beauty-and-the-naked-truth/ )
First off, my regret is not in writing this – it was 2006, my mind was in a different spot, and I was a different person. My regret was in thinking it was a good idea.
As I study and try to improve myself, I come across different ideas, different takes on what I’ve experienced. This week I started taking notes from the book that has pushed me back into overdrive on self-improvement (“The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey) and in the first section he talks about perception and how it shapes reality.
He also talks, in the first Habit, about Viktor Frankl, a Jewish Holocaust survivor whose only other surviving family member was his sister – his wife, parents, and brother died in the camps he was imprisoned in. Those familiar with either the stories or movies based on what happened in those camps (I personally recommend “Schindler’s List” and “Maus“, the latter is a graphic novel using Mice and Cats to represent the Jews and Nazi’s), or especially those who survived (The youngest of which, according to Wikipedia and became notable, is 72), know the atrocities enacted while at the camp. Apart from the various tortures and experiments done in the camps, prisoners were often forced to be naked.
People often don’t realize what they are doing when they force someone to do something. Rape victims – at least the ones I’ve met, who’ve told me their stories, are often uncomfortable with such an idea, as would be understandable. People forced to do things they are uncomfortable with such as being undressed in front of others, often have their perceptions altered – that violation, that last taking of dignity, that humiliation, often scars them, makes any future discomforts remind them of those crimes.
When I wrote that idea, I thought it was the perfect solution: what better way to show people that they have nothing to be uncomfortable about? What better way to show that we’re all the same underneath our clothing? I don’t regret the solutions for which such an idea comes from – people need to be comfortable as who they are and see that we’re all the same on the outside. We need to see that the fat, the scars, the differences in our body, no matter how beautiful or grotesque, is something worth embracing and cherishing. I applaud myself for thinking in that vein back then.
Where the regret comes, though, is in the idea itself, because to implement it, you have to force something to happen. You have to force everyone to be undressed for it to work. That is the biggest problem – when force something on someone, you also force a perception change. More often than not, the perception change is not a positive one.
For victims, such a perception change would be a nightmare, would hurt them more than empower them. For non-victims, they’d end up becoming victims.
I bring all of this up because, as my perception of the world and life changes, I need to remember to be careful when sharing these changes, and to respect the perspectives of others around me who may not be able to see or understand what I am realizing. What me seem wonderful and awesome to me may scare the heck out of someone else – and vice versa.
I also have to be aware not to force a perception change, such as the idea would have done. It’s a lot better for someone to come to the same realizations and perceptions you have on their own or with you as a guide – not with you as a soldier. It was in this way that I came to Christianity, and in this way that most of my better lessons have come from.
I’ll post something later this week that’s more church-related, in case anyone was hoping for another opinion based on a sermon like last week. I’ll also revise last week’s opinion sometime this week, if it needs it – I rushed last week’s edition to get it out the door, so it didn’t have any revisions done to it, and I’m afraid the idea and message I was trying to convey may have been missed.
