Thought
On the plane back, once again my thoughts drifted towards identity. Should our passports define our identity. In the last 30 years or so, many borders have fallen or been redrawn. As a new word—globalisation—has emerged, a new world has blossomed with it. The cultural concept of identity that we have is faulty, extremely limiting, and prone to drive us into conflict.
Identity is not as simple as your passport, but rather very complex. It is not static; it is fluid, always changing according to context and individual dynamics. The thought that we are each continually creating our own identity assured me in my path. I was not striving when it came to my self-expression, but rather reinventing myself. As I’ve immersed myself in the writing world, in the last several years, I’ve found myself relating more with people who have a literary interest than those who speak my language. It doesn’t matter to me whether they are from China, Kenya, or Belgium. I am much more likely to open my heart to someone who reads Bukowski, Gibran, or Murakami than a person whose country I happen to share.
Today, I feel more a citizen of the world—bound to others by my values, interests, passions, and beliefs rather than the colour of my skin, flag on my passport, or the street where I grew up. This is who I am today, but that doesn’t mean it’s who I will be tomorrow. We human beings have become much more intricate, a mosaic of world systems and beliefs. We are constantly reinventing ourselves. We’re all becoming citizens of the world, so it’s time to understand what that means.
Watching the sun appearing on the horizon of my plane window, I smiled, as Gibran’s words came to me. We were all descendants of peasants and shepherds. We were all once young boys and girls who, deep in their hearts, were all poets, living in a land of beauty full of dreams and insecurities that will endure forever.
I am a peasant.
I am a poet.
I am a shepherd.
Podcast
The Diary of a CEO Podcast with Dr Giles Yeo
Dr Giles Yeo is a Professor at the University of Cambridge.His research focuses on the genetics of obesity. He is the author of two books, “Gene Eating: The Story of Human Appetite” and “Why Calories Don't Count: How We Got the Science of Weight Loss Wrong”.
Quote
We make an agreement with children that they can sit in the audience without helping to make the play,' he said, 'but if they still sit in the audience after they're grown, somebody's got to work double time for them, so they can enjoy the light and glitter of the world.''But I want the light and glitter,' she protested. 'That's all there is in life. There can't be anything wrong in wanting to have things warm.''Things will still be warm.''How?''Things will warm themselves from you.'Luella looked at him, startled.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald