On Cosmopolitanism and Understanding



Towards Understanding

I have a feeling that we are all bound. It’s the same moon we gaze at. The same sun that gives us all light and life.

I want to try to understand everyone. I don’t know if it’s possible. But I want to walk in that direction.

I wonder where the line stands between accepting there are multiple ways of living and admitting that some ways are wrong. Aren’t there universal morals that should give us the mind to discern? Or can we use culture as an excuse for everything?

When I go to a new place tomorrow I open my hand. You drop in a grain of your life and I get to see a little. I follow you. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

People across the world have been talking about the same thing for years upon years. In Chinese, there is a similar expression:入乡随俗 (Rù xiāng suí sú). An idiom meaning when you enter a town, follow the customs.

It’s a way to understand and experience the life of another; while simultaneously keeping the order of what another place/culture has established.

By the end of the day my hand holds a small pile of your sand. I tightly squeeze my fingers together; scared the grains will slip through the gaps of my fingers or blow away. So easily we can forget to understand each other. So easily we can lose sight of why we need to understand.

There is danger if we only see differences we will treat each other like aliens. But if we seek understanding, there is a hope that we can learn from our differences and recognise our similarities.

Because I have a feeling we are all bound.


Three Haikus: The cosmopolitans:


Hot morning matcha
quick skype with friends in Malta 
Spanish school at six.

I want to know you 
Please take me to where you eat.
On foreign soil.

Mantras, hymns, salah.
Incenses rises, hope goes out, 
different paths, same heart. 

Comments

  1. SidneyJuly 22, 2018 at 6:10 PM

    This is beautiful

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sreedhevi IyerJuly 25, 2018 at 4:09 AM

    Ha ha - great poem. Also, there's also a book called 'The Cosmopolitans' - https://www.amazon.com/Cosmopolitans-Anjum-Hasan/dp/0670088269

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownJuly 26, 2018 at 5:51 PM

      Thank you! Yes the book looks interesting :)

      Delete

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