Whenever I get an idea that I find fun – perhaps a Blog idea – rather than immediately find a way to write it or store it, I think about some trivial chore I need to complete: water the plants; make an appointment; empty the dishwasher… Why is that?  Well, I think we already know. Because the neural connections associated with my having fun ideas is… mundane labor. That has been my history, and as a girl who was raised in a traditional family in the 1950’s, it fits with the expectation for girls. Girls were not supposed to think interesting thoughts, they were supposed to be available for others who had interesting thoughts. There was data (must I look it up now?) that showed that girls were much more interrupted in their play than boys. And we know that boys are more apt to be called on in school or given meaningful work. The gender gap is real and still omnipresent. 

And the gender gap that is most damaging is the one that I carry in my body and that influences my actions. I am rather on the old side to be reaching out now to communicate my innerworkings. I reflect that if I were a male, I would have brought forth my fun inner life at a much earlier time – perhaps decades earlier.

But it is not just me. I think about massive, wasted brilliance throughout the millennia because of limits assigned to the roles we must play. Sigh. I am far from the smartest person I know. Just imagine how the world might be different if at least some of those with latent brilliance, whose lives have been shackled by expectation, had somehow broken free of the limits of poor education, lack of skills, anxiety about basic needs, anger about mistreatment, and inner strongholds on their identities. What a world this would be!

My dream is that if we were given what we need, each person would choose a unique path, the goal of which would change our human culture in some small but mighty way. I think it is the Sufis who believe that God is One and God is also exploded into eternal and infinitesimal particles of light, some of which are within each of us. Rather than a world where resources are limited, there is a world within our reach where we create the resources we need to both sustain and enhance our humanness. This is my inner reality. 

For my dream to become real, we also must release ourselves of the shackles of fear to become who we are. Why must human nature, which is ‘aweful’ in its brilliance also be ‘awful’ in its brutishness? 

I have this naive idea that education can make a difference. I am not talking about ‘education’ in the sense of public schools, but rather education as envisioned by Aristotle which speaks to balance, discipline, interest in the public good, and enlightenment as a life goal.