Ubuntu

You don’t learn much or expand your horizons if you don’t extend yourself. Living in your echo chamber, the only reward will be the one you received when you first entered the chamber.  You will learn nothing beyond that point.  Take yourself out of the box and expose yourself to learning something new.

 Ubuntu

 I had never heard of this word until I had coffee with a woman whom I had never met.  She had reached out to me as we share a similar philosophy on the value of human communication.  In other words, communication not through digital means but through analogue means. Communication in person and through voice.  When she first reached out, I had a choice of ignoring the message or stepping out of my comfort zone or friendship zone and making myself available.  Having made the right choice, I chose to have coffee and meet a unique woman who is a coach and lecturer on the value of human communication.

 Ubuntu is an African philosophy that places the emphasis on “being self through others”. It is a form of humanism which can be expressed in the phrase : “I am because of who we all are”.

It is this philososphy which allows one to understand that we are only part of a whole and that I am because of the contributions of others.  The more others I allow to enter my conscienouness the broader and more empathetic self I can become.

 The next day I went for a walk with an extraordinary friend of mine.  We were taking an initial hike after my knee surgery and after the torrential rains of 2023 in Marin County.  The streams and water falls were spectacular as the mountains had become temporary rain forests.  We tend to cover most important subjects on these walks.  Most important on this one was the discussion of the silos that we have managed to put ourselves in.  Either socially or politically we are all now identified with one group or another.  It is hard to get out of any of these boxes and we are generally identified as being a member of a certain “tribe” or belief system.  If you are socially conscious you are a “liberal” and assigned the moniker of “woke”.  If you are conservative, you are a MAGA, with all attributes.  One comment he made has stuck with me and appropriate to this writing.  “If I cannot understand your belief system how can I possibly expect to teach you about mine.  Much less convince you of my relevance.

 Being vulnerable, stepping out of your norm to hear another view is the door to learning and understanding.  The longer we continue to only associate with those that think like us the more entrenched our beliefs are whether they are right or wrong.

 I think restaurants are hard to get into because we are all yearning for the chance to interact with people in a human way.  Now if we could just open ourselves with having dinner with someone from a different “club” think what we could learn.

 UBUNTU – the philosophy of being all part of humanity and if that is true then we could become more open to hearing another opinion.  I don’t have to agree with you but I will be so much better if I understand you.  The world will be better if we could understand that we are all part of the whole and that understanding doesn’t mean agreement but it does mean empathy and that is the key to compromise

Moving the ball down the field…