The Squeeze and The Great Divide
Society is a bit like a marsupial, whose warm pouches are welcoming to its own kin and a provider of treasured things such as affection and companionship. Of course, the social security construct works its best magic to bridge the gap between the well and the malnourished, so we are not talking about financial differences. And since we all survive day-to-day on our varying diets, we are also not concerned with intake of food. What precisely am I talking about, then?
Ostracism.
If we extended the pouch metaphor to consider all of the pouches in society, it is easily recognizable that each social construction such as sport and music and blogging is a niche belonging to a hierarchy of respect and of rewards. For the music world for example, the broader your tastes in music, the more likely your tastes are to coincide with another individual and a bridge of acquaintance is made. The greater practice or the more natural your talent with a musical instrument, the more recognition you receive in the field of professional sound, for example.
My job at the university as a more concrete example, is a position as I.T. Support Officer. Despite the limitations of my position such as income and respect and office space, as well as the obvious specificity of my job title, I am engaged in every working day in altruistic acts. As much as I possibly can, I try to help freshmen (first-year students) with enrolment, with directions on campus, with advice on that tedious language exam for Spanish, even though this is not a requirement or a necessary of my job. Why bother, then?
Essentially, each lecture and university day is the same monotonous drear; the flood of unbothered students clogging up the main walkways, discussing their lives outside of university, where to eat, who makes the best coffee, how much all things cost on campus. Sadly, I am not a part of this crowd, not due to exclusive ostracism of my part, but because of my status as a staff member on campus. And this is the smallest and least affective example I can think up.
Exclusion zones like this are everpresent in the pace of the modern day, where the squeeze of the rat race has forced us to cling to our divisions, to our groups which validate our sense of importance and our position in society. More than ever before, our professional and personal group associations are becoming our identity tokens and pushing us into the great divide between ‘my ground and yours’. What ever happened to common ground, like parks or walkways or even that unoccupied cafe seat, that once functioned as such effective social lubricants to meeting strangers and making friends?
I don’t know if it is just that self-righteous bone of mine speaking, but sometimes I yearn for an opportunity to break out of my group labelling, my ‘brandedness’, to socialise with humans like humans do, about the great ideological changes occurring in our young century. It is such a shame that even my most treasured friends typify this kind of branded behaviour, and try to better me with their university-gained knowledge and expertise about shared hobbies of which we were once gleeful, modest adepts.
Who cares if you’re the CEO of a multinational conglomerate whose every whims are secured by the prestige of your title, let me count your E.Q. points and see who you really are when you bring your lunch to work one day.
I might be a staff member of the university, and I could be a chief officer for any department or in a league of my own, but I will never shy away from the ‘dirty work’ that we shun nowadays - if someone needs help, I do away with the facade of self-importance and relate face-to-face like equals. There’s enough leverage in the world as it is that might soon enough destroy the concepts of humbleness and common standing if we don’t reach out once in a while.
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