I have something that I want you to think about.  I think we are at a crucial stage as homo sapiens.  I use the term homo sapiens because that is the term that represents our species.  All of us humans that are capable of producing offspring with one another are all the same species.  We see proof of this all around us.  This angers some of us but it is time that we got over it.  What happens when a black man and an asian or white woman have a child.  The child looks like both parents.  The child is neither an exact copy of the father or the mother.

To put the example I am using into black and white i will ask.  What happens when a black man and a white woman have a child?  The questions fill my head.  What does it mean to be a black man?  What does it mean to be a white woman?  What does it mean to be the child of that union?  I could keep on asking questions but I am using this example to get to a point so here it is.

We use the terms black and white to refer to the races of the parents.  I contend that the term race doesn’t mean anything genetically.  Skin color is just an expression of certain genes.  Said another way there are no races in our species from a scientific or more correctly from an evolutionary perspective.  We are looking at genetic variation and referring to it as race.  The phenotype that seems to be causing so much trouble within the members of our species is skin color.  We call people by words that are supposed to refer to that persons race but it a persons “race” says nothing about the person.  We use race to refer to phenotypic expressions of genes or combinations of these phenotypic expressions but these differences are nothing but genetic variation within our species.  The physical or phenotypic expressions are just surface differences.  They don’t make the person different psychologically.  The genes that cause the physical differences are not linked to personality or value differences.

At some point in history, someone used skin color to make a decision about who was a part of our group.  Put another way this person used skin color to make an in-group versus out-group decision.  The person that did this wanted to be able to distinguish her group from another group.  What if this person would have picked another distinguishable differentiating characteristic.  What if they would have chosen hair color or texture or eye color or shape?  How different would the world of humans be?

We all live in an interesting time.  It is a time when the planet is becoming a smaller place and more and more different humans are coming in contact with one another.  We have a choice.  We can choose to continue to use our phenotypic differences to cause separation between ourselves or we can recognize the faulty thoughts of our ancestors and see that we are all part of the same group.

The discoveries of anthropology and evolution suggest that all of the people alive today have ancestors in common.  If we didn’t we would not be the same species.  If the genetic variation inside of our racial group doesn’t cause separation then why should the genetic variation outside of our group?  Put another way if we of the same “race” don’t further separate into further classes by eye color or hair texture, why should we continue to use these randomly chosen physical characteristics to cause division in our species.

The house that we all live in is this planet and we all have common ancestors so I will use the common terms: sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles.  WE, all of us that are part of the same species are all part of the same family.  We are all sisters and brothers with common ancestors.

Talk about something to think about.  It has taken me a few months to read this novel and every moment that I invested in this read has paid off.

I started reading this novel because of Jocko Wilink and Tim Ferriss and the Jocko Podcast.  I have always been interested in Japanese culture and I thought this might give me an insight into it.  I loved it.

Something to think about, a take away.  A love story that has no description of the bodies of the characters being intertwined or even any hint of impropriety before marriage.  This same two characters denying each other their union until the time is right.  The female character loving the male character and being able to wait even though the male character seems to repeatedly tell her that she should get on with her life and forget him.  The female character taking the male characters dedication to the way of the sword as something that makes her love him more.

Concepts that are foreign to us in modern America.

What totally welded this novel into my consciousness is the final battle between combatants.  After the bout is over the winner thanks the loser for the part he has played in his development and his travel through life.  IE His life was improved because this guy made it difficult.  To say it is a different look at competition is an understatement.  It shows that another culture (not American) is beautifully different enough to teach me something by the mere exposure of reading a novel.

What can we learn from other cultures?  Think about it.

In my meditation and introspection practices I learn a lot about myself and I hope this translates into learning a lot about all of us.  We are all humans, and so many of our thoughts are similar.  We all seem to hide our vulnerabilities, and in many instances cover them up by acting confidently when that is not what we feel.  We also have a tendency to try to find reasons for what is happening.  We may for instance notice that we are broke all of the time, especially as it gets further and further away from payday.  We may look for a reason.  We look in our checking account and see that we tend to eat lunch at restaurants every day which means that we are spending $100.00 a week on lunch.  We now see a reason why we are broke.  Since it is a reason we can change it,  We decide to bring our lunch to work.  By doing this, we find that we only spend $30.00 a week on lunch.  By changing this we now have more money at the end of the pay period.

If you are an introspective person like I am, you tend to look at your life and try to see where you can improve it.  The example of eating lunch out too often is a personal one.  As you reinspect what is happening in your life, you can look for reasons why things are happening.  If you find these reasons then you can change some behaviors which, if changed, will make your life better.  If you do this, you may see certain reasons coming up more often than others and when you find these kinds of reasons you really have a chance to improve your life.  This is IF you are finding reasons.

Reasons have a causative effect.  If you discover a behavior, like you tend to react to certain situations in a passive aggressive manner.  You may have found a reason that causes you to get fired and lose friends. You can choose to work on how you react in those situations and if you are successful in changing yourself, you can improve your life immensely.  Reasons tend to point to things that you can work on to improve yourself.

There is a classification of reasons called excuses.  An excuse may seem to explain a lot of things.  It may explain why you are not getting where you want to go.  When you find a good enough excuse you can relax because it is not your fault.  An excuse tends to shift the blame onto someone else.   A really good excuse can even explain many of the problems you have had all your life.

Some people find excuses in their personality.  Sometimes they will even make it sound cool like, “I have always had a problem with authority but you know that is just a part of my personality.”  They are telling you that it can’t be changed, that it is just a part of them. They may even say things like, “What can I do?  I was made that way.”

Some people may find an excuse in a behavior. “What can I do?  I gotta party.”  You can go to AA or NA or many other such groups and find all kinds of people that remember using their behavior as an excuse for why they were struggling.

The excuse that I think is most dangerous to all of us, is racism.  When racism is used as an excuse then there is nothing that can be done.  After all, you can’t change your race.  I say when racism is used as an excuse.  What makes this excuse difficult to identify is that racism is also a reason.  The statistics seem to show that african american men get substantially longer sentences than other groups for the same crime.  The reason that these men get a longer sentence is because they are african american.

Too many of us are using racism as an excuse.  On a personal level.  Why don’t people like me?  On a career level.  Why didn’t I get the promotion?

When you are using racism as an excuse, you might say that racism explains why you did not get the promotion.  This allows you to shift the blame to someone other than yourself.  It is the company that is racist and it is the company that is not going to allow you to succeed so you can give up.  You don’t have to try any more.  Why subject yourself to further disappointment. Hopefully it is obvious that in this case racism is being used an excuse.

If you think that you might be using racism as an excuse then ask yourself if there might be other reasons that you did not get what you wanted.  If it was a promotion, then what can you do to be better prepared next time?  Could you do a better job with the interview or could you have certification in something that would help you.  Could you get an advanced degree.  Or maybe you can just work hard and be the best employee that you can be.  Show the company that you can help others get the job done.  Any time you are given a project, make sure that it gets done on time and to the best of your ability.  When the company needs someone to stay late you could volunteer.  Show the company that you are the best person for the job and always ask yourself how you can improve.

The big point here is if you find reasons you find things that you can do.  When I think about this subject, I wonder if people that have broken through into jobs that nobody of their race had ever had before ever used racism as an excuse.  Do you think Jackie Robinson ever thought that he could not play Major League Baseball because the organization was racist?  I bet if that thought ever came into his head, he used it as motivation.  Somehow I think that he used his energy identifying where he could improve as a player or as a person and in doing so he showed Major League Baseball that if they did not let him play then they were making a mistake.  If he had used racism as an excuse then I don’t think we would know who he is.