Vive La Difference !

I've been blogging since 2008! (started with the mere purpose of preserving my knowledge of  English as a second language). 

Blogging has opened up a whole new world for me, rich in people of different nationalities, and topics of a great variety.

Reading other people's blogs , makes me  highly aware of differences in background, lifestyle, viewpoints. That's both interesting and helpful.  Through blogs, one can learn a lot about oneself and others; make comparisons, consider options and suggestions, draw conclusions. 

I like writing. As with reading, there's a great deal of blessed escapism in it, but there's more than that - there's struggling with your own words and ideas, and that struggling, can do a lot of good to your cognitive ability.

I greatly appreciate  people with talent and skills in one or more fields of life: arts, crafts, culinaria (cookery), gardening etc.. I  enjoy viewing, in their personal blogposts,   the display of this talent, in different formats.    I myself have got no specific talent or skill.  I'm just the average kind of person.  (However,  if I need or want something badly, I'l find a way to learn how to do it, talent or no talent). 

Anyway, it seems to me there are generally more similarities than differences. Most people love Nature, Travel, good Food, their Family and Pets.  They might show their love in different ways, but in the end , love is love anyway one shows it.

Good blogging, to my mind, usually involves reciprocity (of 'follow' and 'comment'), respect given to other people's beliefs, acceptance of different opinions to be published on your blog.

Hopefully,  Climate Change with its terrible wild fires, or/and Social-  Political unrest within and among nations, will not prevent us to go on with our blogging  as long as we can and wish to do so.

People

 

Being part of the human race, it's only natural that we, people.  want and seek the company of other people.

Yet,  when I look back at my life, I find out that it is people that have weakened me most - more than work, more than bad habits, more than the...flu.  What can I do with this awareness? Not much. I can try to ignore  bad manners, stay away from some "toxic" individuals, keep to myself for protection (avoiding isolation). 

Barbara Streisand opens her famous song 'People' with a line claiming that "people that need people are the luckiest people in the world".   Well, let's not exaggerate. We all need people,  but needing them  might also make us dependent, and dependence  of any sort is rather undesirable, even within the family.

Another singer,  Jonathan McReynolds, has also a song named   'People' . He says about them that  "they are the best and the worst you've created / loving and hating and opinionated / loners in basements, and those congregated / ".  That's  closer to what we know of people.

People with talent find a long escape in art, others bestow hours of  attention on critters . I've got none of these tendencies (except feeding pigeons and growing the  'lucky bamboo' plant). So, no escapism for me, only the bare reality of trying to cope with people.

That's not as bad as it sounds ; it gives me considerable insight into human nature, and often saves me from falling into the traps laid by the combined efforts of populism and stupidity.These traps are becoming more numerous as the outer conditions (virus, climate) are getting worse.