communication gaps

THE GAMES WE PLAY

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

These games that we play, and think it’s just fun, they can really damage people. And by the time we start to suspect the damage we have done and start to pull back, it’s already too late and the victims are left reeling and wounded for the rest of their lives or for a very long time afterwards. These games of hearts, of love and sex, and of adventures, of selfish desires and of fun.

Sometimes we think we’re just expressing ourselves, or just seeking the meaning of life, or just getting out of life everything that it has to offer, or just doing what “everybody else” does, or just living life to the full, or just making sure we don’t die one day with regrets in our hearts of the things we left undone, or simply assuaging our own personal propensities, or even getting back at someone, or maybe trying to experience for ourselves how something feels, or just having some harmless fun.

I used to think that the things I would one day regret the most are the things I left undone, the opportunities I missed because I did not try to get them. But now I realise that the pain and regret that comes from doing certain things is even worse, and is real, and stays with you. You can’t run away from them because it is real and something you actually did. And all the apologies in the world has not made them go away. The only consolation, if any, is that your heart has learned a deep lesson that should, hopefully, make you a better person for the rest of this life and also in your subsequent reincarnations on Earth. Hearts hurt for a very long time.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

~ Che

Power is, or derives from, an idea into which all concerned subscribe. This idea is the exponent of a recognition to which a people as a collective have come; in other words, a consciousness into which a homogeneous group, a common type, has awakened. This recognition, this consciousness, now becomes a component characteristic of this homogeneous group which as a group has graduated from type to type. The members of the group thus acquire a distinct, distinctive nature that differentiates, distinguishes and distances them from every other group. They thus become a “People”, the rough draft of a nation. And this people, these people, are the children of an idea to which they have subscribed, out of which their world view has been born. And the concept of Power inherent in this idea becomes the foundational notion and nature of Power that determines their politics and their interpersonal relationships.

Because this power is subject to a context into which they all subscribe, rooted in an idea which has become their mother, they are all bound to it and all bow down before it. It thus becomes the socio-political and culturo-spiritual Soul of their national personality.

When this people comes into contact with a different people of different ideology, a culture clash takes place. Communication gaps and mutual misunderstandings become their meeting points. The divergent concepts of power, born over centuries or even millenia out of different recognitions and perceptions, creates a situation where each group has the feeling that the other group is not “playing by the rules”. Whereas perhaps they simply have a different understanding of the concept of “power” and of “power-play”. You only see what you understand; every other  thing remains at best a riddle, if not entirely invisible and impossible to perceive or empathize with in any way. At worst, it is adjudged to be a threat.

This is where the need arises to “learn another person’s language”. The other person’s inner language of concepts. Therein lies the understanding of their concept of Power, and thus of their understanding of what should be the right and balanced form of interpersonal relationships. When two such come to a mutual understanding and meet in the middle, then the product of their new and shared understanding becomes a living guideline and another valuable page in the universal charter of human rights. And responsibilities.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.