Break free of the borders of your mind

 

What an amazing adventure by Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson recently. They fulfilled their childhood dream of being kings of the world – and then got to go to space, too!

Not many of us who dreamed big in our childhood managed to fulfil them. (The exception could be if you had a dream of becoming a Malaysian minister: it seems like every Tong, Vick and Mamat can become a minister, and does).

Yeah, yeah you can argue about the technicalities of the billionaires’ adventures, that they didn’t go orbital, or they could’ve solved world hunger instead, etc etc. But they did get up there, and you didn’t.

I didn’t either – damn, that childhood dream of mine (plus the dream to wear a pink gown and tiara to a ball … oops, sorry, wrong chat group!) isn’t likely to come true either.

Later in the year, another billionaire will outdo even these two – he’ll actually go into orbit with three others and spend a few days in space in the Crew Dragon space vehicle by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Seems to be a super-rich thing. The first millionaire space tourist did this over 20 years ago, and we can bet many more will follow suit. An astronaut wing seems to be the latest trophy for uber rich white men.

One thing you hear from astronauts is this thing called the overview effect. Up in space you see the entire planet in all its glory, without the dotted lines of national borders you see on maps.

You’d have humbling thoughts about our planet and its inhabitants. You’d feel we’re all fellow travellers on this pale fragile blue dot we call Earth. That we need to take better care of our one and only home.

After all, borders are just invisible lines in the sand or forests or in the middle of rivers or channels. Borders change according to the whims and fancies of humans who drew them in the first place.

A Sea Gypsy off Borneo grows up uncaring about national borders; similarly with a Bedouin in the Arabian deserts, an Inuit in the frozen Arctic or a Temiar in the jungles of Kelantan.

Borders are a human construct. Having invented them, we invented reasons why they are necessary. They become important enough to die for, which means they’re also important enough to kill for.

Who should we blame for this sorry state of things? Of course … politicians! They are one-blame-fits-all entities, so let’s make the best use of them while we can! (Though it’s not like we are ever going to run out of politicians.)

But remember – politicians are just a reflection of us. And politics has now become a career. There’s no shortage of applicants and all minimum entry requirements have been abolished.

Malaysia has very long borders, both land borders with Thailand, Brunei and Indonesia and of course our maritime borders. Much of these 7,000 plus kms of borders are porous and remote.

But even within our national borders, we have other borders – pernicious ones — which are the invisible borders we contrive to build in our own heads.

It’s not enough to have a Malaysian identity card to belong within our borders: many insist on other proof of belongingness such as race or religion or political affiliations.

People who’ve done nothing except to be born on the correct side of these “borders” feel they can lord it over others who weren’t as “fortunate”. No proof of special rights, competence or intelligence is necessary. Just a spine, a central nervous system and a loud voice is enough.

Borders then are very convenient for these people. Within these borders they can do pretty much anything, including parasitically eating the nation out from the inside. Anything inconvenient within the borders can be suppressed, anything outside dismissed.

It’s been said patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. This refuge is well defined whether by lines in the sand or lines in the mind meant to differentiate between “us” and “them”.

How do we destroy these borders?

I won’t be one to tell you to ignore reality and to just love each other and sing Kumbaya and everything will be OK. If only it is that simple.

There are reasons for such borders to exist in our mind.

As a species we are primed to gather in groupings of family and relatives for safety and survival. You can see that in many other species too, such as lions or elephants or wolves with their strong social order. (Baboons, too – check them out).

It’s for the protection of the species, given there are enemies out there ready to kill you, whether for food or for dominance. We humans have long since come down from trees and out from the jungles. But the primal fears remain, and easily surface and are exploited.

Race, which has no biological significance, and religions, supposedly a matter of individual faith, become useful tools. You can’t claim to protect unless there are enemies to protect from. So, you create enemies, and regularly enlarge them into monsters.

We are now left with the ironic situation that the more such leaders fail in their promise to protect us, the more they’ll succeed! It’ll be a reason to demand even more support and fealty because their failure has just proven how powerful and dangerous the enemies are!

To even hope of winning, it would take each and every one of us to reach out to those within our small circles and show that good people are good regardless of who they are, how they look or what they believe in. And that bad people are bad the same way too.

Then, slowly, circle by circle, the fears of the “other” will diminish. Hearts will open up, and the shackles that our leaders (manipulators?) have over us will fall away. If we do this long enough, we’ll deny space for those who seek to exploit our fears for their own evil interests.

Bad leaders will then be the exception rather than the rule. We’ll be able to have sane conversations, not cloaked with fear, on important topics such as how do we live with each other. Then maybe we’ll have a chance to pull back from the brink.

After that we can start thinking about our own space programme to send billionaires and baboons to space – and to keep them there. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.

✍ Credit given to the original owner of this post : ☕ Malaysians Must Know the TRUTH

🌐 Hit This Link To Find Out More On Their Articles...🏄🏻‍♀️ Enjoy Surfing!