Culture and staying true to individual identity

For a while now, I've been talking to people and thinking about what culture really means. The more conversations I have, I'm finding that people can be put in a box and locked in because of it. When I talk about culture, it is not specific to a country but more of the situations that surround a person. For example, the choices one makes to build their own social culture, stance on politics, intellectual reasoning, faith, domestic habits, traditions and so on. It can be influenced by the territory they live in or chose to place themselves but when I say culture, I mean the choices that one makes to form their identity. 

I'm someone who constantly travels for work; have been exposed to multiple cultures and life choices at a very young age; have friends from different backgrounds; and most importantly, tried food from different places. It's not to say that I like everything and agree with values from all these places but I am able to understand the reasoning behind why people are the way they are. It has definitely hurt my belief systems many times but mainly taught me to keep my walls down and explore what goes into a person's identity. 

All this to say that, at the end of the day I am connected to traditions of one culture, the culture of my support system. That includes- my family, my closest friends and also business connections. These traditions involve systems of faith, values, common interest, things we do for fun, conversations we enjoy, extent of participation with the outside world, investments and studies. Like I talked about in this video, all these factors influence my identity but at the end of the day, I'm pulling characters from all these people and things around me only to form my individual identity. That means, I'm also weeding out things that don't interest me, things that I don't value and things that I don't want to have in my life. Just because I'm similar to one doesn't I'm the same as the other. I'm my own individual person having principles of my own and that's what makes me, Sharon.

So to talk about the question of whether culture restricts us, we must understand where our identity lies and therefore what kind of culture we expose ourselves to. It shapes us to a degree where we share similar interests but what makes us unique, is the degree of responsiveness to a particular situation. If we're not careful, culture can restrict or even hurt us.

In one of the culture videos, Judah Paul commented, "when ppl from India move to US or UK they follow and care more about Indian culture where as they don't care about that when in India. also ppl get obsessed with Hindu culture when they leave India, and above all very important point is ppl should understand the diff between Indian culture and Hindu culture, wearing Saree is part of Indian culture but celebrating diwali and joining Hindus in their festival is not Indian culture, wearing kukum, bindhi is Hindu culture." He makes a valuable point but let's break it down, shall we? 

The first part is holding on to your culture and developing a stronger love for it, after leaving your country of origin. Many of us are victims of this. The question is why? Why do we become vigorous in following our traditions excessively after we move out of our country of origin, when we don't pay much attention to it, when in our country of birth? I must also include that some of us adopt these traditions in the wrong way without knowing the reason as to why we follow these traditions. 

There are many reasons as to why we blindly practice these traditions but the most prominent one is that we want to have a sense of belonging. In all honesty, though we have the need for a better life and better education, we do not want to be separated from our roots. We do not want to feel abandoned of our faith, lifestyle and our friends. We have to realize that, while it is good to have a connection with our roots, we must also know why we are practicing these age old traditions. Ask the question of what it means to follow these practices. If not, it could break you because it is directly related to your identity. 

I say that because I was a victim of this crime. I followed my traditions blindly because I did not wish to see past what was presented to me. I literally said yes to everything, without knowing the intentions behind it or what those practices meant. When in the spotlight, people will ask all kinds of things of you, because they know you have the power to influence but it can also destroy. But when I started asking myself why I'm doing certain things and what it meant, I wanted nothing to do with them as they were not part of my principle beliefs. It broke me on the inside and it took so much effort to build myself back again. To sum it up, let's say that I closed my eyes to the bigger picture and had a very narrow perspective on life. There was so much more out there, that I did not wish to see because of the small world that I was living in. The details of the story are for another time but my point here is that we need to know what practices we are adopting.

The second part of Judah's comment is about separating the factors that go into a belief system. Nobody can assume to say, just because they do A, they must also do B. The easiest way to say it is, separation of church and state but when it comes to identity, it is separation of, more than that. What you wear, what you eat, what you say are all individual decisions that you make on a daily basis. To make a better representation of yourself, you must understand your culture better.

I have a friend who constantly talks about culture making or culture breaking. Martin Luther King is an excellent example of culture breaking and culture shaping. He was a person of faith who understood that slavery is of the mind and African-Americans did not need to be in that prison. He broke that tradition of African-Americans being slaves and led a civil revolution towards freedom. Here, slavery was part of a culture and it was a tradition that was followed for years together. But one man asked why, understood what it was and where it came from, and was bold enough to tell the world that they don't have to live that way. People saw how fervent he was with that belief and that thought set free, an entire race of people.

Being a slave of culture or staying true to the basics that culture presents is in our hands. 

Fear should not be the motivator that forms identity, but courage.

Today, I chose freedom. I chose to stay true to my identity.