We are over 7.6 billion people on earth and yet we somehow always gravitate to the same five ways of doing things. From the way we dance to how we cook our food, there are generally five acceptable and acknowledged ways of doing things. When, where, how and why did we ever do that? And do these five acceptable ways of doing things even work for all 7.6 billion of us? Who does it serve when we conform to these five acceptable ways of doing things? Have we considered disrupting, diverting and or maybe just being difficult?
The big 5
I’m just going to leave those questions alone and hopefully, you’ll think about them and start to uncover your own truth because answering those questions for you is not in my ‘job description’. On a recent girls trip that I took with an old friend. We decided to experience a safari, explore the big five and live our best lives. Safari stays or trips in South Africa are unnecessarily expensive. South Africa prides itself in having the big 5, the lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and the Cape buffalo.
The big five are such a national treasure that it’s on our printed money notes. They are considered the most dangerous and difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot according to big game hunters a.k.a white men who like the idea of tracking down animals, shooting them and hanging them as trophies around their houses. They are also the most poached animals.
On our trip, we were constantly asked what we were doing at the lodge, whether or not we were maids and where our husbands were. When we answered that we were living our best lives, unmarried and what we actually did for a living we were met with strange looks. At first, we thought nothing of it until an elderly and yes white couple said and I quote “You are spoilt.” They said this as they pulled their faces in disgust as if we weren’t allowed to experience a safari or live our best lives.
What systems?
And then it dawned on me that us being on this safari trip, living and loving our best lives, spending our hard earned money and being two black women, unaccompanied by male companions was a disruption to the narrative that they had gotten so comfortable with, with regards to Black South Africans. You see what they know of people that fit our profile is not what we were doing. They are used to a system that says that when you are black, female, unaccompanied by male counterparts, are not a maid and are living and loving your best life that it has to be an accident and that clearly you are spoilt. By who, what and how is something I really did not care to ask or entertain.
So what are systems? It is a set of things that work together (not necessarily harmoniously) as part of a mechanism or an interconnecting network. Now why did I mention that things in a system do not have to work harmoniously together because the factors that maintain a system really don’t have to get along.
Take for example slavery. The slave masters didn’t get along with the slaves however through oppression and dehumanization the system thrived. Patriarchy, capitalism heterosexuality and how could I forget about religion. These are all systems that say if we do things a certain way then everything will work together. Except it doesn’t because it’s usually at the expense of someone else’s freedom to be and the exploration of their best life.
Shake, rattle and roll
By now we all should have seen that meme or post on the socials about not having a seat at the table and then there are other variations that promote building your own table and that’s all good and well except that also doesn’t work because the only understanding of systems are oppressive, toxic and most of all exclusive and not inclusive. Think about that the next time you are in the VIP area, at an invite-only affair or apart of a clique and realize that you are apart of the problem. Perpetuating the very toxic systematic tendencies that oppress you is not liberation it is just recycling demons. And how’s that hell working for you?
So what am I suggesting? Break the table, fuck shit up, disrupt, divert over and over again and most of all be difficult. When they tell you that there’s no room for that idea go ahead and do it anyway without the secret society attached. Allow your idea to breathe so that it can recreate and if you have to be systematic think Mother Nature, hello ecosystem. The giving and most sustainable system we have come know.
Considering that a tree and a flower may look similar in their respective budding stages when a flower chooses to flower, bloom and blossom it is disrupting the almost happened redundancy of looking like and maybe being a tree. Disrupting, diverting and or being difficult does not mean that you have to be rude or violent about it. Disrupting, diverting and being difficult could be as simple as choosing your best life, living and loving it confidently. There really is something about that that pisses people off. Go out there and be your best unruly self as you live and love your best life.
