I’ve been considering this, and I think I could best describe this as a lack of earthiness.
Now, “earthiness” has, for me, some associations that I should outline. It includes connection with the world of nature (especially plants and seasons), it includes the earthiness of being positive about sex and sexuality (which I’ve touched on elsewhere – for instance, see here), and it includes “earthy language” – swearing, to put it bluntly. Swearing has been shown to help deal with pain (I’ll dig up that link one day), but one is not supposed to swear – it was, in fact, a series of posts on an email group I am on about the topic of swearing that led me to this post.
On that list someone was told off for choice of swear words – I actually do agree with that telling off (the words used were discriminatory), but some of us do need to be able to swear to help manage stress, frustration and even pain.
So what do we do? Well, I think it is possible to be PC in one’s swearing, and still indulge in swearing quite satisfactorily – believe it or not. I won’t give any examples on this blog, though (I’m trying to avoid having to enable the adult content button – gosh darn it!).
My concept of physicality also includes a few other topics which I would like to touch upon briefly (as I am running out of time before I am due to go and see my sister to give her a daily dose of healing). I consider we need also to accept the earthiness (perhaps, the “physicality”?) of life in a number of ways.
Firstly, there need to be physical challenges and physical risk taking behaviours for those teenagers who need it: we no longer have passing into adulthood ceremonies (I never considered debutante balls in that category, by the way), and those didn’t include trans/intersex people anyway so they were flawed, but we need things for those who want to push their physicality (as an example of this need, there was a Japanese student in Australia who recently went walkabout because he wanted to try himself out physically). I also note that these should have a sense of being forbidden – as do swear words! – or they won’t be taken up. Still, we should, as a society, be able to come up with something which allows young people to try themselves out in a way that they find satisfying, without being too risky.
Have a look here and here for some related thoughts …
Next, not all of us are cerebral. I actually consider the ending of trade and technical schools in Victoria in the 1990s a great and tragic flaw in our education system – I did at the time, and I have had no reason to change my opinion. In fact, much that I have seen since then only reinforces my opinion. (I, incidentally, consider myself a mixture of both: I need both physicality in a number of ways, such as going bush, exercise and my carpentry hobby [and better yet, sailing :D ], but I also need intellectual rigour and stimulation.)
Also, related to that point, not all of us verbal. Stereotypically, women are supposed to prefer verbal interaction, at which they are - stereotypically - supposed to be better at than men. However, I know women who are more physical than verbal, and men who are more verbal than physical. In any case, many of our education, counseling and growth strategies assume participants are verbally literate: that is not necessarily so. There are too many people getting thrown out on the education/job scrap heap because they lack verbal or other fluency – in my opinion.
I also consider the sex negativity of society could be due to a lack of earthiness, but I have touched upon that previously.
Finally, I want to emphasise that a lack of connection to natural world is a problem. If we were more earthy, fewer people would be surprised by physical calamities such as floods or bushfires (and maybe fewer would live in such places – or , at least, maybe they would take appropriate precautions), or the rescheduling of flights/commuter services as a result of storms, or have a lack of empathy for farmers when affected by weather (or be surprised when prices go up after a drought or flood!), or would do stupid things like plant trees on boundaries, or be surprised when a wind blows things away.
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
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Tags: society, down to earth, pain, political correctness, words,
First published: Monday 18th October, 2010
Last edited: Monday 18th October, 2010
