I Blog Poetry and Prose

Escaping History and Double Consciousness

Jalál (Glory), 17 Mulk (Dominion) 175 B.E. - Saturday, February 23, 2019

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Blogging Circle of Friends   (E) A group for WDC bloggers. #1901868 by Lyn's a sly fox

DAY 2288: "Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history." Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862. Annual Message to Congress - Concluding Remarks   What do you think?

Escaping History

"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history."
Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862

Abraham Lincoln was right:
We cannot escape history.

We can rewrite it!
We can call it historical fiction!
But we can't evade it!

History will come back to haunt us!
To haunt in words carved on headstones,
and as names engraved on walls.

We are the results of history,
and we can't extract ourselves from it.

We can tear it down,
and attempt to pave it over,
but we can't evade it.

History will return to us,
to be relived
and reenacted by ourselves
and by our children
until we acknowledge its lessons.

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Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise  (E) Blog City - Every Blogger's Paradise. #1972895 by Lyn's a sly fox

DAY 1894: In W. E. B..Du Bois book, The Souls of Black Folk, he addresses the experience of double consciousness, a divided identity split between the consciousness of how one views oneself and how one is viewed by others. Have you struggled with representing yourself while being conscious of how readers may view you when they read your work.

Double Consciousness

In some cases, individual human beings tend to perceive themselves differently from the way they perceive other people. This is the result of a number of things one, of which, is the way a person is raised. Another issue is that we are living in a world in transition. Humanity is moving from a planet segregated into nation-states to one united in peace and brotherhood. In this age a new multidimensional planetary culture is growing within the womb of national, cultural, and religious interaction. The superstitions and dogmas of the past are being revealed for the illusions they are. Human beings are attempting to deal with the stress of a world in transition, and it affects the way we view other people and ourselves.

Some individuals today are attempting to hold onto the "them and us"--double consciousness--attitude that marked past ages, the ages of humanity's childhood and teenage years. Sometimes individual still tend to judge others by their apparent differences from themselves instead of members of the species of humanity. Instead of focusing on the similarities it is the differences that are played up in our consciousness and in the media.

As for me, at 72 the way other people perceive me is and isn't important. I would like them to see me as a human being and not just an old white woman who is different from them. I know this probably is the way many perceive me, and, I also know, that other people perceive me as a human being with similarities to and differences from themselves. I prefer people to accept my differences and similarities to them as enhancements to our interaction and relationship.