Category: Culture

In a fairly neutral way, is the West quite careless and disrespectful around others’ beliefs and opinions? This sense in which everything’s seen as fair game in our world of thought; nothing’s sacred or off-limits. As if we wander the world – through the lives and ideas of others – casually picking apart, criticising and passing judgement on all we find. As if that’s what the world’s there for. (Notes One)

Aren’t we raised that way? To scrutinise as we send the tendrils of our minds out into the world to return victorious with our conclusions about the value and significance of it all. As if we’re here to cast judgement: life passing before our eyes for us to decide what we think of it. Maybe it’s intrinsic to the nature of thought? That we learn, observe, weigh up, assess, and draw conclusions. It’s what the brain can do.

Yet, isn’t it strangely disrespectful? If all humans have minds, ideas and beliefs, why are we to wander into their world and judge? As if there’s only one possible train of thought to be found in life – one “right answer” everyone should accept. Aren’t we all emerging from different backgrounds, with different belief systems emerging from different cultures? Don’t humans have the right to believe as they choose?

The idea of respecting that right and giving people space to think as they’ve chosen seems important. Isn’t the mind a sort of sacred space? The place each person’s been storing up all the insight and capacity their life has given them. The place each one of us experiences our lives, reflects on things, and determines what we feel, think or believe. Isn’t that delicate space quite uniquely what makes us human?

For some reason, though, the boundaries of “respect” seem to have fallen away in the West. As if we no longer have that concept of separation, individual sanctity and stepping back. Isn’t it an essential principle between the people of any culture? This idea of the estimation in which others, their thoughts and beliefs, are held. That there might be lines we shouldn’t cross in how we approach one another. (Notes Two)

Not suggesting it’s the only reason, but perhaps technology has something to do with it? This anonymising, democratising tool that’s shifted so many of us into a rather “flat” global reality where we don’t know the backgrounds, identities or situations of anyone. Doesn’t it make it so much easier to cast judgements and push our views over those of others? Although, maybe it’s the mindset that created the tool. (Notes Three)

Isn’t it interesting that – as with resources and trade – we seem so happy to trample over the world with our ways of thinking about things? Why would be so confident with our perspectives, conclusions or value systems? Why so withering about the fact others could believe anything other than science? Sometimes it seems we couldn’t care any less – as if, in our hands, thought’s simply a cold and brutal weapon.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The thought surrounding us
Note 1: Belief in what we cannot see
Note 1: The value & cost of our words
Note 1: All that we add to neutrality
Note 2: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 2: Is cultural sensitivity still a thing?
Note 2: True relationship within society?
Note 3: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: Does being alone amplify things?
Note 3: Power and potential
Note 3: The difference humanity makes

As an alternative, Can there be beauty in communication?

Thinking, broadly, of “culture”, what is it that it means within our lives? Between the moments of every day and the larger moments of our years, seasons or lifetimes, isn’t it generally weaving rhythms of meaning, purpose or intention into existence? Tending to pull our thoughts in certain directions, remind us what matters, refocus our priorities, and channel our activities down established paths or into new patterns.

As if each culture, place or family creates its own way – its own narratives, traditions, routines or practices that serve to carry forward a specific understanding of life and how to live it (Notes One). This framework that holds our relationships; structures our lives; guides our thinking; reinforces our values; lets us know where we stand. An overlay of organised, meaningful habits we build “life” around and relate ourselves to.

Whether on the personal level or reaching beyond that to family, community or nation, its events or ideas seem to filter through to define so many moments, conversations and thought processes. Almost this “way of thinking” that accompanies us through life, letting us know how to see things while grounding us in the familiarity of routine – helping us interpret reality and respond to it with our feet firmly in place (Notes Two).

Over time, that must build to quite a substantial sense of “meaning” as each person, each day, each year walks the same lines in thought and action, overlaying all that went before with this intentional repetition of fairly timeless practices. The inherited rhythms of culture having been picked up with new hands and carried on in new ways – subtle or dramatic shifts that, hopefully, still have a similar effect.

In a world of slowly-shifting habits, such a thing would presumably impart a reassuring sense of belonging: routines that carry us through our days with the gentle reminder of expectation being met. Seasons rolling round, specific events or culinary traditions passing by one after the other, the rhythms of life letting us know we stand as the latest in a long line of people living their lives in this familiar fashion.

Almost like tides of meaning that hold us in their thrall as the same stories, characters, meals, expressions or ceremony mark each day off in order as we arrange our lives in tune with the overall structure it offers. As we age, that familiarity perhaps helping tether people in the reassuring arms of “how things are” and “what we should do”.

By comparison, “modern” culture can seem divisive and unsettling; this ever-shifting landscape of trends that define and set us apart more than unite us in one, harmonious conversation about “life” (Notes Three). Perhaps the beautiful blending of previously disparate cultures into this new, individually-chosen culture of personal identity was always going to be less unifying? Each choosing their own way.

Doesn’t that choppy divisiveness create new challenges, though, for people still seeking the reassuring threads of a common meaning that’s somehow able to hold us all together throughout our lives?

Notes and References:

Note 1: The stories that we hear
Note 1: Culture as what we relate to
Note 1: Culture as information
Note 2: Visual language and spaces
Note 2: Learning from the past, looking to the future
Note 2: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 2: Navigation, steering & direction
Note 3: Making things up as we go along
Note 3: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 3: Do we need meaning?

When it comes to all the voices speaking into this modern world, who we choose to listen to and the attitudes with which they’re choosing to approach our complex realities must be important in terms of the influence it’s likely to have on us. While we might have almost endless options within all that’s currently being pumped out into the world, how much is truly valuable for where it’s likely to lead?

Sometimes it seems quite incredible how much is being churned out each day – all these new perspectives joining in our already quite intensely populated global conversation (Notes One). Almost as if there’s this new digestive process accompanying our life on earth, as we all consume this constant commentary, deconstruction and analysis of everything that’s going on within and between all our various groupings.

What are we to make of it? Presumably it could become quite a paralysing level of self-awareness, as everything’s drawn into this intense scrutiny from every conceivable perspective. As if almost nothing can emerge unscathed from that kind of multifaceted critical analysis. Few actions seem like they could withstand it – bringing to mind the Buddhist notion of not taking a step for fear of treading on ants.

Not to say there’s not immense value in expanding our awareness to see things from every angle as we reflect on the impacts we’re having in life and best way to be living it, but aren’t people generally both flawed and limited in outlook? While this new, global conversation increasingly asks that we see from all sides, don’t we traditionally tend to look mainly in the light of own perspectives and interests? (Notes Two)

In that context, I find the contributions of Rich Roll and his longstanding podcast pretty valuable in the sense that they both acknowledge the struggles yet set the target high in terms of self-development. His own personal story, and those he tends to draw out from the lives of his guests, often focussing on this fundamentally human journey from limitations, wounds and flaws through to insight, mastery and transformation.

Isn’t it fairly common? That people have a dream, a vision or gift we can offer the world, but also need to face up to this other side of ourselves which often tends to work against our higher ideals and threaten to tear down any success we might hope to achieve. Each person, perhaps, existing somewhere between their light and their darkness – the blessings and the challenges – as we seek our path in life (Notes Three).

Delving into fundamental questions around what it is to be human and what we might be able to make of whatever situations we’re finding ourselves within seems so valuable. This basic attitude of hope and belief in what’s possible when we commit to working on ourselves and expanding our level of understanding to create the solutions we desperately need.

Whether we’re talking on the personal or collective level, it’s an outlook that could perhaps help make all the difference.

Notes and References:

Rich Roll website, with links to his podcast, blog and other activities: https://www.richroll.com/

Note 1: What is the public conversation?
Note 1: Attention as a resource
Note 1: Where do we get our ideas from?
Note 1: Inspiring people and ideas
Note 2: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 2: Joining the dots
Note 2: Integrity and integration
Note 3: Complication of being human
Note 3: Will things change if we don’t make them?
Note 3: Letting people change
Note 3: Starting over in life

Ideas around how we use our opportunity to contribute to conversations was also one part of Things we give voice to.

Thinking of how, in life, we’re all reflecting our experience in thought, coating it in words, then sharing them with others, how beautifully is that coming together? Is it a jangling, mismatched cacophony of firmly-held positions and battles for the crown, or a delicately balanced dance between the varying perspectives we each inevitably have of life?

Sometimes it seems we’re simply humans, gathered around our one complex reality, trying to adequately capture it in words. As if thought, as this idealistic notion, could somehow inch its way into every aspect of life to the point of being considered “truth”. That we live our lives through thought seems fascinating: each person converting experiences into words we can pool by communication. (Notes One)

Presumably, it could be a beautiful thing? An incredibly purposeful dance as we each offer our perspective and receive others’ insights; learning, as we go, to appreciate reality through other eyes. Between us all, it’s possible we could build up such a multifaceted picture of all it means to be human: all these different ways of being, paths walked and priorities we’ve had over the years.

As if each person could somehow voice, completely truthfully, how they see things and what it all means. Reality, then, reflected through the unique constitution of all our characters and personalities – each offering up what life’s like from their starting point, with all they’ve been through along the way and all they’ve made of whatever came before them. Difficult as most paths might’ve been, isn’t it valuable to hear? (Notes Two)

Maybe that’s what culture offers us? The more beautiful take on what we’re all attempting each day: the give and take of voices, actions, values, backgrounds and gestures; the conflict or resolution of differences; the interplay between what we all bring and what’s working itself out within society and our thoughts about it. This symbolic reflection of our lives and how we might be living them. (Notes Three)

In that, there clearly can be beauty – even in the darkest subjects. Isn’t it about the balance? About letting people be; giving their words and gestures space to land. This delicate interaction between each person, all that drives or concerns them, and the respect they’re given within the bigger picture. Don’t we all need to speak? To have the space to express ourselves, feel our perspective honoured, and offer others the same.

Achieving that kind of balance, these days, seems extraordinarily difficult. How much time do we have to create space for truly opening up to one another? How many venues do we have where people can meet and experience all the added nuance of tone, body language, and everything else that’s stripped out with technology? How often are we alone; hoping to connect? (Notes Four)

Finding ways to communicate authentically that work for us all – somehow transposing the old dances into new, modern ones everyone can take part in – may not be as easy as some people imagine, but where are we without it?

Notes and References:

“How to have a Beautiful Mind” by Edward de Bono, (Vermilion, London), 2004.

“People Skills” by Robert Bolton, Ph.D., (Touchstone, Simon & Schuster), 1986 (originally 1979).

Note 1: The thought surrounding us
Note 1: Joining the dots
Note 1: What is the public conversation?
Note 2: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 2: Personal archaeology
Note 2: Making things up as we go along
Note 3: Culture as information
Note 3: Navigation, steering & direction
Note 3: The stories that we hear
Note 4: What is it with tone?
Note 4: Modern challenges to relationship
Note 4: All in such a rush

Thinking of life as a dance between us all was also the focus of Mutual awareness and accommodation?

Thinking broadly as much as specifically about our life on this planet, isn’t culture what helps us find our place and chart our path? All those ways people over the years found to convey, pass down and illustrate their concerns about life, its meaning and how we might best respond to the challenges it presents. This beautiful, ongoing human conversation of which we’re all part.

It’s incredible to think how long meaning’s been passed on this way: how many fires people have gathered around to hear the tales of their culture, the characters and events those before felt wisest to reiterate to the point they were etched firmly in the consciousness of those carrying forward any given way of being. Stories that, hopefully, help guide us safely and remember our journey. (Notes One)

Out of all the communities, cultures or places people have ever lived there emerges this amazing repertoire of all that’s been dreamt up or written down over the many, many centuries of human existence. All those times people sought to convey what they’d been through or struggled with as they sought to move forward, individually or collectively. All these warnings and ideals that’ve been shared.

Any story has something to teach: some configuration of society or aspect of relationships we might learn from, honing our sense for all it means to be human and how best we might let that come to light. Some might emerge from people living under experiences of oppression, scrutiny or control. Some from imaginary worlds where such experiences live within different forms.

As humans, maybe we need stories to remind us who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we hoped to be heading? This sense in which our lives are part of a long, long line of people trying to make the best of the world as they found it. This notion that “culture” can keep us on track by way of focussing our minds and emotions. The past, perhaps, helping us make sense of the present and look clearly to the future.

It must matter? This almost timeless journey so many humans formed part of – upholding things and carrying them forward in big and little ways over the vast panorama of history (Notes Two). Sometimes we might look back with too much nostalgia, but the idea of honouring our path to the place we now stand seems significant.

Finding that balance between remembering while looking ahead is perhaps “always” challenging: what to let go of; what to hold firmly; what to aspire towards. This sense in which humanity is forever walking forwards, perhaps needing to leave some things behind in order to take the next step, but also needing to retain the vision of where we’re going and all we must take with us.

Writing this in the context of ancient cultural sites having recently been destroyed for the sake of mining, it’s hard not to question how well we’re handling the heritage that was placed in our hands.

Notes and References:

Guardian article “Rio Tinto blasts 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site to expand iron ore mine” by Calla Wahlquist, 26 May 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-tinto-blasts-46000-year-old-aboriginal-site-to-expand-iron-ore-mine

Note 1: The stories that we hear
Note 1: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 1: Navigation, steering & direction
Note 1: Do we know what we’re doing?
Note 2: History’s role in modern culture
Note 2: “Quest for a Moral Compass”
Note 2: Truth, illusion & cultural life
Note 2: Things change, over time

Exploring slightly similar notions of culture and the passing of time was also part of Visual language and spaces.

While there’s clearly a lot in life that can drag us down – this much awareness of our own countries’ struggles, alongside all the collective and individual difficulties the world’s weighed down with, can easily lead to a sort of paralysing despair – there are perhaps an equal number of things to encourage and uplift us. Maybe that’s too optimistic, but seeking out the inspiring things in life seems important.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s not a point, somewhere between despair and hope, where there’s a chance of engaging to make the difference between the two. This sense in which we might hold in each hand all the struggles and all the dreams then make a move that shifts that balance more towards resolution, awareness and transformation. This very human gesture of setting our intentions high. (Notes One)

Perhaps that’s one definition of inspiration? People choosing to embrace ways of life, of thinking, that might lead us all in good directions. It’s interesting to think that each one of us could be such a source of inspiration: that our everyday choices, attitudes and responses might serve as an example to all those around us in both the real and virtual world.

And I’d imagine we’d all be inspired by different things; given we each have our own priorities, concerns and areas of growth. Everyone focussing in different directions, wouldn’t we naturally find different people’s insights inspiring? Especially if we consider every aspect of life as being part of a spectrum from complete ignorance through to effortless mastery.

At any point along those many journeys, the thoughts or actions of different people may resonate most with our own particular situation and style of approach. As if we’re all exchanging perspectives as we walk our paths, grapple with challenges, and strive toward realising specific goals or concepts. Each person, perhaps, always being able to offer “something” that will help someone else. (Notes Two)

Which is my circuitous way of saying that perhaps few people are universally inspiring – those lone souls who are able to speak wisely to everyone, wherever they may be on their path. Maybe, in a strange way, we “need” to all be talking at once in the hope that, somewhere, our words may be able to help someone? Of course, we often do so in an online world filled with those aiming for the exact opposite.

How we’re supposed to navigate this new, connected, hyper-aware world is strange to contemplate: if we’re not to let all these influences simply wash over us, blending the good with the bad, how are we to set limits or chart a realistic, compassionate, constructive course? While no one answer may suit everyone, there must be some sort of balance to be struck. (Notes Three)

Identifying people and ways of thinking that resonate with your values, challenges and hopes may fit in there somewhere – those whose words or perspectives lift your heart with gratitude that people exist who are striving for better paths through life’s struggles.

Notes and References:

Instagram links for Nirrimi Firebrace (https://www.instagram.com/nirr.imi/); Jedidiah Jenkins (https://www.instagram.com/jedidiahjenkins/); Sophia Bush (https://www.instagram.com/sophiabush/); Rich Roll (https://www.instagram.com/richroll/).

Note 1: What we create by our presence
Note 1: Will things change if we don’t make them?
Note 1: “Minding the Earth, Mending the World”
Note 1: The human spirit
Note 2: Personal archaeology
Note 2: Complication of being human
Note 2: Finding flaws
Note 2: Can others join you?
Note 3: The thought surrounding us
Note 3: Sensitivity & the place for feeling
Note 3: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: Reading between the lines

In terms of Instagram, examples of such voices may be Nirrimi Firebrace, Jedidiah Jenkins, Sophia Bush, Rich Roll or many, many others.

When we view life from behind a lens, aren’t we not then “in” reality? We’ve taken this step back to see what stands before us with different eyes – eyes of posterity, performance, evaluation. All the times we’re choosing to stand apart from the moment, observing it differently to capture things a certain way, it’s almost like we’re no longer “there”.

Sometimes it also seems that pictures loom larger than memories: the lived experience of events rivalled by images that drown out the complex awareness of many perspectives with the compelling evidence of one. The slow, faded recollection of a moment replaced by a series of snapshots that might eventually crowd out the other, less photogenic aspects of our lives. As if photos are clearer and more reliable.

Humans, now, being the first to live with this constant presence of photography, I’ve heard it said it’s changing how we act, perceive and present ourselves. It’s incredible to think that little more than a lifetime ago people rarely saw images of themselves; whereas, now, the incidental events of each day can so easily be posed, captured and shared.

It must make a significant difference to how we are? Perhaps shifting our focus from the inside – our presence, contribution and understanding in each moment – to a preoccupation with how we look from the outside. As if we risk becoming actors, creating the illusion of something our lives might no longer contain. Empty shells, conveying the image we want others to see.

There can be such disparity between how things look and how they are on the inside (Notes One). Something can seem impressive, but contain nothing within. Completely unremarkable things can hold great inner value. Maybe it’s a mistake to get blinded by appearances? Especially given how easy it now is to create images that bear staggeringly little relationship to reality.

But perhaps it’s also too easy to imply that we’re becoming superficial, self-obsessed or distracted. As with many aspects of modern life and the technology woven through it, we probably just have the opportunities people before us were wanting: capacity, convenience, simplicity, control (Notes Two). Maybe people have always sought to capture their memories, share their experiences, and give others a window into their lives.

Essentially, then, photography seems like a form of communication: people sharing their perspectives to let others see the meaning things hold when, for a moment, we view life with their eyes (Notes Three). This beautiful act of self-revelation as we offer up our insights to one another, filling in the gaps of mutual understanding to grasp a little more of the reality we’re all part of.

As with writing, perhaps we’re just wanting to reach out, open the door on what matters to us, and create common ground by offering our take on things. How closely our words or images track alongside the truth of reality – and, how well such processes integrate into the lives we’re leading – seem just some of the challenges modern life’s presenting us with.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Absolute or relative value
Note 1: Oh, to be young again?
Note 1: Masks we all wear
Note 2: All in such a rush
Note 2: Modern challenges to relationship
Note 2: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: What does art have to say about life?
Note 3: Going towards the unknown
Note 3: Living as a form of art

How much of all we take in is really true? Not just in the sense of being a questionable overlay to reality in the shape of interpretation, opinion or argument, but actually a recasting of that reality through different eyes (Notes One).

There seem so many ways in which the information we’re receiving mightn’t be entirely true – all these subtle or dramatic representations of facts, their contexts or meanings. If we take it that, through our eyes or other senses, we’re constantly observing reality, taking it in, combining it with all we know and emerging with this evolving idea of life, how much of that picture is strictly going to be real?

Are we to look on our minds as faithful mirrors, having captured all that’s happened since our arrival on earth? All the lessons of youth and childhood, all the observations and developments of adulthood having lodged themselves up there as a reliable repository of all our knowledge, insight and understanding of “life”. This solid foundation on which to stand, view and judge anything we might encounter.

What if this is a space that contains as many lies as truths? Somewhere full of potentially mistaken lessons or facts that’ve changed so much in the interim that we might be wise to revisit, re-evaluate and revise what we have in mind. After all, how much of what crosses the threshold of our senses each day can truly be trusted? It seems entirely possible that the lion’s share of each day’s intake could quite easily be “lies”.

Not just in the sense of deliberate ones, but also because so much in life is now a convincing illusion: all these misrepresentations of reality in the form of social media, camera angles, make up, after effects, and so forth. Then, all the stories and films that run alongside reality, taking its forms, reworking its events, offering us perspectives we could never hope to have within real life.

Don’t we spend a reasonable amount of time absorbing vivid depictions of something close to reality that’s actually fiction? All these characters and retellings that come to life for us in ways reality itself rarely does: clear storylines with all facts present, if concealed, ready for us to uncover, disentangle and enjoy. This beautiful place where anything can happen and lessons can be learnt out of harm’s way.

The idea of what culture adds to reality seems such a fascinating question (Notes Two). Is this a place that helps us live our lives better through understanding things more clearly, or something to distract us from the humdrum state of existence? Does it help our sense of reality become more true or less so? Maybe we risk becoming desensitised, disinterested or disengaged with life itself.

Does it matter if our minds are so full of convincing, beautiful depictions of something close to reality that we find life itself dull, tiresome and frustratingly unclear? Especially now, when a realistic, constructive understanding and engagement with life seems so important.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Reading between the lines
Note 1: All that we add to neutrality
Note 1: Entertaining ideas & the matter of truth
Note 1: Going towards the unknown
Note 2: What’s the idea with culture?
Note 2: Reading into social realities?
Note 2: Culture as information
Note 2: The stories that we hear

The idea of what we believe and its effect on the lives we share was also part of Making things up as we go along.

In life, how much is anything really neutral? We might say facts and statistics are just that – neutral observations of reality – but aren’t they usually wielded within that reality for a certain purpose? Doesn’t our mind tend to coat them with interpretations, implications or conclusions that, almost immediately, filter back into the world without such a clear sense of neutrality?

Tracking back to the idea of our thoughts, in some way, reflecting reality (Notes One), there seems to be this sense in which we each observe life and take those observations as being, simply, true. Whatever we’ve been told each thing “means” and wherever we’re been told it “stands” within our society becoming what it is, for us, in terms of fact.

Is life that simple? Whatever culture, tradition, education, the media, or everyday life tells us about the artefacts, events, practices, beliefs, and assumptions making up our lives can clearly be seen differently from other perspectives. Yet whatever worldview we inherited or developed for ourselves seems to dictate how we’re seeing each element and the place it’s been assigned (Notes Two).

Aren’t we perhaps “seeing” life through the lens of whatever ideas we’re holding about it? Giving everything its meaning, its significance, its purpose. Stacking everything up in line with the conclusions, justifications and narrative arcs we’ve been told “fit” with the perceptions we’ll make of society. Any given fact potentially being brought in to support any number of agendas or causes.

As if our neutral observation of reality immediately receives this overlay of meaning we’ve learnt to apply to it all. Then, of course, the emotion we have in response – the enjoyment, indignation or despair at our expectations being confirmed, denied or otherwise challenged by the course of events. (Notes Three)

Our view of life naturally containing our own hopes and sense of what’s acceptable, events are rarely neutral in how they almost inevitably suit some while coming at the cost of others. In the give and take of society, maybe nothing’s really neutral in that the world we’re living in shapes everybody’s lives: every word, attitude, choice or policy rippling out with personal and social consequences (Notes Four).

Neutrality may exist in the idealistic world of thought, with all its facts, theories and statistics, but “in reality” it seems that what we make of it – how we respond and apply those ideas – might be the determining factor in whether these things are good or bad. Maybe facts are only part of the picture? The other part being brought to the table by us through what we choose to do and how we bring our ideas to life.

In our relationship to the world and all that’s living within it, maybe the meaning we’re assigning things makes all the difference? As if the thoughts we have in mind alongside the bare facts of existence are the level at which important distinctions are being made – choices that, perhaps, step away from neutrality before feeding back out into our lives.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Ways thought adds spin to life
Note 1: What is real?
Note 2: Culture as information
Note 2: Passing on what’s important
Note 2: The sense of having a worldview
Note 3: Effect, if everything’s a drama
Note 3: We may as well laugh
Note 3: Does anger ever, truly, help?
Note 3: And, how much can we care?
Note 4: Joining the dots
Note 4: Humans, tangled in these systems
Note 4: How important is real life?
Note 4: The difference humanity makes
Note 4: Living as a form of art

Earlier thoughts around the idea of neutrality were also the focus of What’s neutral? back in 2018.

In many ways, don’t the stories we hear shape us? Becoming the characters, events, words, places and moods that populate our inner landscapes of meaning. Drawing us together with those who share our narratives, perhaps having crafted their lives or sense of self around whichever elements resonated most with their own storylines or struggles. (Notes One)

Almost as if these imaginary worlds spun around our heads draw us in to let us become part of them, then blend back into “reality” through our identification with and discussion of them. Becoming part of “our” world through our affinity with and embodiment of them, perhaps? We follow their lead, adopting certain appearances, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions or behaviours based upon the example they’ve offered us.

It’s one of these strange questions: what do we “get” from culture, from the stories it tells us? Is this escapism, as the storyteller weaves the elements of reality into some reassuring, neatly resolved form we can travel along with to a worthwhile destination? Is this a form of education, as we experience versions of life from others perspectives, real or imaginary, by seeing through different eyes? (Notes Two)

If it’s drawing from reality as much as feeding back into it, is this a process of society reflecting upon itself and exploring its options? That we would all contemplate these versions of reality and decide for ourselves which paths we’ll take in response. A sort of digestive process running alongside our collective existence; mulling over the details of our lives to separate the essential from all the rest.

Whether we’re talking about cultural life itself or the more everyday commentary of the media, isn’t it all telling us about our world? Showing us what’s admirable or deplorable; hoping that we’re able to tell the difference. This more or less symbolic overlay that takes the elements of “life” and recasts them in a different light to offer us greater clarity over how to read, evaluate and respond to all we see around us.

And it seems like the ideas we have in mind must make a difference (Notes Three). Don’t we interpret everything we meet in the light of whatever overarching sense of meaning we’ve established so far? The stories of childhood, education, history, culture and everyday life effectively forging some sort of personal picture of what life is, what it means, what matters, how we should approach it, and so forth.

What, then, are those pictures? Between all the voices telling us countless stories over the years, what picture’s that going to have created in each individual’s mind? And, how well are they blending back into reality through the choices we’re making in response? Where earlier societies had fairly consistent, firmly held, closely monitored stories and practices holding them together, we now have such incredible freedom (Notes Four).

If the stories we hear and conclusions we draw from them are serving to inform who and how we are in life, what are we to make of that opportunity?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Stories that bind us
Note 1: Culture as what we relate to
Note 1: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 1: Living your life through a song
Note 2: What’s the idea with culture?
Note 2: Culture as reflection
Note 3: The sense of having a worldview
Note 3: Culture as information
Note 3: Visual language and spaces
Note 3: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 4: Making things up as we go along
Note 4: Plato & “The Republic”
Note 4: Culture as a conversation across time