Diversity is part of our nature

 

We need to get a whole lot better at accepting difference, and recognising that this is something we all share; it is part of our nature.

A slightly tongue-in-cheek, but not necessarily completely inaccurate view:

So much time and money is spent focusing on what is going wrong: on excavating, analysing and categorising difference. Extremes of difference become reframed as disorder. Disorder is generally seen as undesirable, as it interferes with order and order is necessary to be efficient. Efficiency, meanwhile, is desirable, as in a capitalist economy this is how people make money, and keeping an orderly production line is the best way to capitalise on profit. So, people in power, often the directors of production and efficiency, invest even more money into categorising the disorders. There are whole realms of business that exist just for that purpose. There are businesses to diagnose, businesses to treat and businesses just to offer support for everyone who is trying to make sense of where they fit on the disorder-order continuum. Those making a profit and a living from all of this disorder are unlikely to want the status quo to change, and so the disorder machine continues to rumble on. 

What if we started instead from a place of acceptance. What if we accepted that every one of us is different and that each of us bring something unique into the world? Would the world stop turning? No, but it might be a better place!

When we stop to ask ourselves the purpose of measuring and comparing and contrasting, of pushing for compliance; when instead of ordering people along lines and into boxes, created by people who generally have power or who want ever more power, we see that natural order is, always has been and always will be difference. We see difference as something we all share, and that has to be a step towards bringing us together as a human race.

Accepting difference creates a space of possibility and a freedom for people to be. Without the friction of trying to fit in, and how this holds us back, who knows what new journeys we can undertake. Instead of a closed chapter, where the only positive outcomes are those that are expected, the future becomes an open book.