The Politics Of Things
Growing up, I largely associated the term politics with the ways of a government, its leaders, officials, and its corrupt systems. A narrow view indeed. I gathered also that one could opt to study politics as a subject, and I could not comprehend why. The term politics for me has always held a negative connotation.
I got married at a fairly tender age and I came to realise politics was woven into the very dynamic of a family even- and in retrospect, it seems I barely noticed, except it existed in every sphere of my yesteryears. Unsurprisingly, children played politics too. Soon, I started to work professionally and got to experience ‘work politics’ to be a thing. It seems everyone, everywhere around me was politicking, maybe even me-unknowingly so. Politics was everywhere! Only now it seems, I know!
As I gathered years and wisdom, my ever-expanding knowledge and experiences helped me see politics in a much more pragmatic light.
To an average homogenous person like me, in a thriving heterogenous global society like ours, my politics is my shield aiding me to dabble within the construct of my continental and global society, and if I am looking closer to home, it aides me as an individual in navigating the realms of my family or work life while helping me to be a contributing member of my greater community at large.
My view is that everyone in society intuitively has a degree of standing or power that one attributes to them and they to you. It’s a maze that we maneuver all day every day, to get by even the most mundane of days, let alone as we ascend and descend the various rungs of the scaffolds, of the many intricacies of life which we finely come to balance- as we create our small worlds, and go on to inhabit our planet. And while we ‘cohabit’ as a human being, is where the politics of things would have to come into play. Where there are people there will be politics I say! Not so narrow a view anymore.
More often than not, we are pandering to our audiences, playing to the galleries if you will. The braver ones will continually punch above their weights, the bolder ones almost always acing at their politics. And some average ones like me are still figuring out the politics at bay.
And then of course, unbeknown to us we are sleepwalking our politics to our children’s deep subconscious. And in that light, aren’t we then a neat product of the ideologies and politics of the generations or few that preceded ours? And then we have to ask, how relevant is our politics? Possibly room to grow? Get better at your politics?
If the sum of my morals and my values guide my outlook, attitudes, and therefore my politics in determining how I respond to the challenges of my life and my world. Does my politics then partly determine my successes and failures or struggles in this world? How much of my education informs my politics? How does my upbringing impact my politics? How do my renewed experiences, guided by my evolving politics, help me to continually revise my vision for my society and my world going forward?
On another note, I ask how much should my politics on average have to overlap with another’s to help procure a peaceful society, a society conducive to our collective existence as a species? Would then some values have to be a constant in everyone’s politics? Like the non-negotiable values of tolerance, compassion, sharing, integrity, generosity, and kindness. Would such an overlap of ‘our’ politics enrich our experience’s as we tread the wider world?
And what if most of my 7.6 Billion co-habitants collectively agree to overlap with these non-negotiable values? and, see it as an inherent value system to our harmonious co-existence? And If yes, should we then agree to agree, that outside of these non-negotiables we are still able to pander to our individual political voices which truly define us to be the thriving and unique individuals that we are, with the diverse perspectives we hold- intrinsic to our unique expressions within our human race.
For when most of us acknowledge the very interdependent nature of our coherent existence dwells on the aforementioned non-negotiable values in our politics, would our world then be a place where every human being unequivocally gets to explore every facet of their human experience, in a more fulfilling way?
While at it, how about if we had a portion of our mental and physical faculties dedicated to leaving the earth better than we had initially found, before finally succumbing and becoming stardust ourselves? For what if there was a recycling project in the universe which was sending back our ‘stardust’, wouldn’t we then happily return to this earth to live the infinite experiences impregnated in every lifetime. My politics would eagerly await this return, provided all non negotiable’s were intact.
Would your politics concur?