Written on 3rd of September 2021 (corrected version)
My mind is very chattery today. Oftentimes I’ve stopped myself from a thought painting because of my laziness to take the time to define concepts.
There is a reason why I call it thoughts painting. As an artist I don’t want to know what stroke every brush is going to make, I want to paint anyway.
I understand that without defining the ideas/concepts who play the protagonists in our mind-play, the dance might feel pointless.
But I do think of thinking as ART and if my juggle of ideas, or cocktail of concepts are wrong, tasteless at least I would have contributed to the recipe by showing what not to do. However, depriving myself of the joy of contemplation feels like a crime.
All this to say, listen to your inner voice. I am guilty of getting lost in listening to others’ voices through the technology we inherited. I forget to listen to the humming of my own muse.
Before you think about it, the title is totally click-baity. The word “race” is still a question to me. I once heard one of my idols, the author Alan Moore say that in the human genome there are no traces of race, it is a human construct, essentially Race is an illusion. (Note to self: Find out for once and for all if race is still a valid word to be used).
To put it in context, before what I tell you what happened, several days earlier I was in a meetup to network people because I was looking for a job, and I met this Indian guy to whom I said something within the lines of: I understand my Boris can be strange for people to hear, because I am probably the only Indian Boris in the world. But it shouldn’t be a surprise to see people from different cultures sitting around a table hanging out.
For a short time I used to live with my friends because I didn’t have a job so I couldn’t afford to pay for an condo. Back then I used to have habit: take the laptop in my backpack, walk around the mall with air conditioning because it was too hot outside and have the usual conversations with myself, sit down somewhere and let the words pour on the computer with the aim of organizing them later in form of a blog post (or hopefully several blog posts).
As I got on the escalator going up, I noticed something which took me off guard. Something that made me think about my comment mentioned above that people from different culture spending time together, living together should be completely normal.
What I saw was new but beautiful, I saw on my right an interracial couple on the escalator going down, so far so good right? But wait it was an Asian man and an Indian woman. Now why was that surprising to me? Have you been surprised like this before? Have you thought why?
As humans I believe we are programmed to see patterns everywhere, that’s how we went from hunters (figuring out at what time it was good to hunt) to farmers (planning the harvest) to corporate executives who use forecasts to build strategies. But if you have to understand this is the first time I see this configuration and I have lived in India, in France, in UK, in Germany and now in Thailand.
I just realized that, all ethnicities mix but some ethnicities mix more than others.
I have a theory that hatred towards others is the result of a projection we make of ourselves onto others, when these projections represent what we consider positive sides of ourselves we like that person and if these projections represent what we consider negative sides of ourselves we hate that person.
So people who actually hate other people hate a part of who they are inside.
I have heard of self love a lot of times. When someone says that they are not attractive their best friend (to console him/her) tells that person, “you need to like yourself otherwise how would others like you?”
But love doesn’t make you a better person. self awareness does. So try to understand yourself and try to improve yourself on a day to day basis. You can admire other people, you can even have mentors, but don’t compare yourself to others (which we naturally do). Just try to be the best version of yourself you can be and don’t be afraid to talk about it. Talk with your friends but also talk with strangers because they will be honest and won’t be afraid to offend you.
Don’t just love yourself, find a good reason to love yourself.
I believe there is an unexpressed frustration or suffering people in minority groups go through. Let’s take the example of European expats in Asia. I know this is true in India, I have discovered it’s similar in Thailand too when it comes to the way Caucasian people are perceived. To put it simply almost everybody thinks Caucasian people are rich.
Food panda is a delivery service in Thailand. When I was talking to someone in a meetup event from Japan. He expressed his surprise to see a Caucasian person riding a food panda scooter.
Of course, there are reasons for this, we see images of privilege, the higher quality lifestyle from Europe, the United States and so on, not to mention the exchange rate of currencies.
No matter where you are from, travelling to a country which is not even aware of your mother tongue can throw you off, however, it’s an experience I recommend to everyone.
No matter how different the experiences are just remember to not be afraid, by putting yourself out of your comfort zone you have taken to road to wisdom and humility.
If you can’t afford to travel, how do you travel without travelling? READ BOOKS.
SKETCHMAN BORIS 