Great article. Getting to know others who are different from you breaks down those stereotypes and narratives that have been fed to you by others. As Mark Twain famously said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
Brilliant! As you say you don’t necessarily need to travel to learn these perspectives but it’s a (nearly!) sure way to find them. I grew up with similar perspectives purely from a lack of real world experience of other cultures and travel definitely taught me so much.
Traveling is definitely a growth hack for this… because you cannot ignore it. It’s possible to learn those perspectives with other ways… but you have to be way more intentional and aware or your shortcomings in the first place to seek change.
Do you have a moment Amanda when you realized how “wrong”/ignorant you were about something that really stands out?
What springs to mind is not so much being wrong but just being ignorant because I grew up in an Australian city that at the time was mostly white plus a fairly significant Asian population. Beyond that, I spent a childhood not being exposed to other races and so when I travelled I would always "notice" that; these days, I don't (plus my city now has a lot more immigrants from Africa, Pacific Islands and South America too so it's more properly multicultural).
It was quite a shock to read this TBH. But then I guess I was fortunate to travel in my early 20s. What does Muslim actually mean, anyway. What does Gay actually mean? People are just people..
I don't know if you've come across this fellow - Derek Sivers - https://www.dereksivers.org/ (he is here on S/Stack but I don't seem to be able to copy the link to his page).
He questions beliefs, loves a different point of view and just a really interesting bloke. You might like him.
“People are just people..” as simple as it sounds… it took me a while to see it… and we can see in our current world that it’s not that simple for a lot of folks out there 😕
Sounds like something I would enjoy reading, thank you for sharing.
So, I wouldn’t know that about you Jeremie, but I guess it like what they say, your family are the ones that try to instill their values and their beliefs into you and tell you their knowledge of the world and people.
I don’t know how some kids and adults break away from their families’ values and religion and beliefs. But, I have always been the black sheep of my entire family, not just my household, but the entire big family.
I only knew my biological dad until I was 10, when my step dad got in the picture and adopted my sister and I so we could all have the same name and something told me not to agree, bc my intuition said no, and I was looked at as the quiet troublemaker. I was an active listener and always observed my surroundings carefully. My biological dad was abusive in the emotional and verbal way. My step dad was abusive in every way. He was an immigrant from Skopje, Macedonia, so Muslims were always their enemies and my family were also very racist.
So, of course I do my own research and experiences and remember this is before internet. So, my knowledge came from my surroundings, I became friends with the Muslims at my school that everyone bullied, I even became best friends with Yaser and Fadia and Mohammed, which who were also Palestinian, which their parents didn’t even want us to be friends bc the countries till this day are still at war. I learned a lot and got ridiculed for it. If something was really bad in my life going on, Yaser would stay home for 7 days and fast and pray for me, his family did not like that bc I was a Roman Catholic and my step dad was Greek Orthodox. I learned a lot from their family of their passion for their beliefs and not everyone in certain religions practice the same way. Me being catholic, I also didn’t believe in everything that was preached to me. So that is why, I became a Sunday school teacher and eucharistic minister and performed my grandparents funerals and I am an end of life doula. I also study or read Buddhist books.
When I was in high school and in college I became friends and had relationships with all cultures like Trinidadians and Blackfoot Indians.
What I am trying to say it is hard and you get punished often when you seek out the truth and study and get knowledge on your own, different from your families, world experience with intuition and a backbone to break free from what you thought was the truth bc that is what was instilled in you is hard.
I am glad you got to meet people from all walks of life in order to gain some knowledge on your own. “Not everything is always just black and white”
It's amazing you had this capacity to seek out all those perspectives early on in life. What that instilled by someone, or something happening? Or it was just your natural curiosity and openness?
It was my openness, when I meet people that others say that culture or group of people are dangerous, than my reaction is too say not all people are the same just because they practice a religion, everyone are individuals, don’t base your bias on what you have read or taught, learn about the individual, not all apples or oranges are the same you might have few bad apples in the bag, doesn’t mean the whole bag is bad.
Great article. Getting to know others who are different from you breaks down those stereotypes and narratives that have been fed to you by others. As Mark Twain famously said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
Yes, this has been the greatest benefit for me about traveling. It totally changed my perspectives and opinions on so many things. Education 2.0
Brilliant! As you say you don’t necessarily need to travel to learn these perspectives but it’s a (nearly!) sure way to find them. I grew up with similar perspectives purely from a lack of real world experience of other cultures and travel definitely taught me so much.
Traveling is definitely a growth hack for this… because you cannot ignore it. It’s possible to learn those perspectives with other ways… but you have to be way more intentional and aware or your shortcomings in the first place to seek change.
Do you have a moment Amanda when you realized how “wrong”/ignorant you were about something that really stands out?
What springs to mind is not so much being wrong but just being ignorant because I grew up in an Australian city that at the time was mostly white plus a fairly significant Asian population. Beyond that, I spent a childhood not being exposed to other races and so when I travelled I would always "notice" that; these days, I don't (plus my city now has a lot more immigrants from Africa, Pacific Islands and South America too so it's more properly multicultural).
Thank you for sharing.
Being exposed to diversity from an early age is such an important element of all this.
It was quite a shock to read this TBH. But then I guess I was fortunate to travel in my early 20s. What does Muslim actually mean, anyway. What does Gay actually mean? People are just people..
I don't know if you've come across this fellow - Derek Sivers - https://www.dereksivers.org/ (he is here on S/Stack but I don't seem to be able to copy the link to his page).
He questions beliefs, loves a different point of view and just a really interesting bloke. You might like him.
“People are just people..” as simple as it sounds… it took me a while to see it… and we can see in our current world that it’s not that simple for a lot of folks out there 😕
Sounds like something I would enjoy reading, thank you for sharing.
So, I wouldn’t know that about you Jeremie, but I guess it like what they say, your family are the ones that try to instill their values and their beliefs into you and tell you their knowledge of the world and people.
I don’t know how some kids and adults break away from their families’ values and religion and beliefs. But, I have always been the black sheep of my entire family, not just my household, but the entire big family.
I only knew my biological dad until I was 10, when my step dad got in the picture and adopted my sister and I so we could all have the same name and something told me not to agree, bc my intuition said no, and I was looked at as the quiet troublemaker. I was an active listener and always observed my surroundings carefully. My biological dad was abusive in the emotional and verbal way. My step dad was abusive in every way. He was an immigrant from Skopje, Macedonia, so Muslims were always their enemies and my family were also very racist.
So, of course I do my own research and experiences and remember this is before internet. So, my knowledge came from my surroundings, I became friends with the Muslims at my school that everyone bullied, I even became best friends with Yaser and Fadia and Mohammed, which who were also Palestinian, which their parents didn’t even want us to be friends bc the countries till this day are still at war. I learned a lot and got ridiculed for it. If something was really bad in my life going on, Yaser would stay home for 7 days and fast and pray for me, his family did not like that bc I was a Roman Catholic and my step dad was Greek Orthodox. I learned a lot from their family of their passion for their beliefs and not everyone in certain religions practice the same way. Me being catholic, I also didn’t believe in everything that was preached to me. So that is why, I became a Sunday school teacher and eucharistic minister and performed my grandparents funerals and I am an end of life doula. I also study or read Buddhist books.
When I was in high school and in college I became friends and had relationships with all cultures like Trinidadians and Blackfoot Indians.
What I am trying to say it is hard and you get punished often when you seek out the truth and study and get knowledge on your own, different from your families, world experience with intuition and a backbone to break free from what you thought was the truth bc that is what was instilled in you is hard.
I am glad you got to meet people from all walks of life in order to gain some knowledge on your own. “Not everything is always just black and white”
It's amazing you had this capacity to seek out all those perspectives early on in life. What that instilled by someone, or something happening? Or it was just your natural curiosity and openness?
It was my openness, when I meet people that others say that culture or group of people are dangerous, than my reaction is too say not all people are the same just because they practice a religion, everyone are individuals, don’t base your bias on what you have read or taught, learn about the individual, not all apples or oranges are the same you might have few bad apples in the bag, doesn’t mean the whole bag is bad.