Affirmative Distraction

 The elephant in the room is diversity and everybody is talking about it. But what people aren't talking about is the fact that the room is really big and there are a lot of elephants in it. With the overturning of Affirmative Action, there is an outcry of how this will affect universities as well as businesses in how they will recruit and what they will focus their resources on. The problem with this thinking is that it isn't looking at a bigger picture. 

For one, diversity for the sake of diversity doesn't always create a healthy working environment. You can have a very diverse group of people in a situation, but if that group doesn't find a way to bond, then how can it be functional? These institutions have to not only focus on recruiting and enrollment, but also competition with other similar institutions, funding, and functionality, as well as the various core missions they prioritize. 

For another, when an institution values diversity OVER everything else, it can devalue its ability to focus on its intent, whatever that may be. Focus is key for organizations when they are not only wanting to survive but succeed and thrive in an always-growing competitive world. 

And lastly, what if some people want sameness? What if black people just want to work around black people? What if women just want to work around other women? Why force others onto them? Sameness really isn't a bad thing. If you look at the people you surround yourself with, you might just find certain similarities with yourself. 

All this aside, I agree with diversifying organizations such as universities and companies. We SHOULD focus on being able to adapt and bridge gaps into professions for anyone who is qualified. But that shouldn't be the only focus. For us to succeed as individuals, organizations, companies, we also have to compete against those that want what we want. And to do that, we have to be willing to stay true to who we are. And yes, who we are changes over time. But doesn't that make life much more interesting? 

Death

 I once thought of death as a being. A person, sort of. I mean, why wouldn't I portray it as a being, seeing as though I am a part of the generation that has witnessed and experienced some of the largest media format explosions in all of human history. Death, in most of these formats, is always portrayed as a being in one way or another. 

But as I've gotten older, I wonder. I wonder if it is more complex than it is one being. When most people look at the world, they see cause and effect in its most simplistic forms! Cause: Hitler started the Third Reich. Effect: World War 2 happened. But the world, and universe I would say, are much more complex than that. World War 2 was a phenomenon that would have never occurred if it weren't ripe to occur. So many series of conditions had to be in place for Hitler to come into power in the first place. 

Death, in my mind, is the same thing. It is not A being that is there to take one into the afterlife. It is a culmination of all the factors in one's life to happen precisely when it happens. From infant mortality to someone passing away at the ripe old age of ninety-seven it always happens when it happens. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Not that people don't have their own personal experience as they are going through the dying process. There are many stories of individuals seeing loved ones as they near departure. Some people see loved ones that have since passed away. Some people see what they call angels. There are so many rich and beautiful stories about the experiences people go through. But those, in my mind, are still part of the manifestation of the dying process and how complex it is in its many forms. 

To those that may or may not read this: Please don't think I am trying to minimize death. The opposite, actually. I think it's easy to think of Death as having the form of a being because many of us minimize life. We'll say we don't. But we do. So, when it gets time to die, we hold on to those same forms we held on to when alive instead of fully immersing ourselves in the micro-universe as well as the macro-universe. 

Just more Random Thoughts by yours truly...