iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Devil In The Details ~ |
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Aren't differences beautiful? And similarities too.
Thousands of people are dying in North Africa at the moment because folks have had enough of spoilt little boys hoarding all the toys but when you've got something you rather like the last thing you want to do is give it up. The question is, who's kicking who in the balls?
Worthy and just, these revolutions would seem. Power to the people. Equal rights. Although, like history, it's not always easy to agree on just where those lines should lie - the one's demarcating the haves from the can't even dream ofs.
Freedom for Libya? Just look at its borders: ruler-straight lines dividing tribes and tongues, drawn up by earlier tin-pot dictators (European ones this time), deciding who should have what and what not.
Equality's a mighty fine thing. Yesterday was International Woman's Day. Sexism and elitism of the highest order, I'm sure you agree, boys.
Barça beat Arsenal yesterday, and my partner jumped all around the living room, threatening to bring her carved African statues crashing to the ground. She and hundreds of thousands of people from near where she grew up were very happy, because they believe that their team has more right to a trophy awarded for kicking balls around than a team from North London, where I'm from.
At least most football fans' violent outbursts are restricted to shouting at the telly in their living rooms or in a special stadium for doing just that.
A world that needs an International Woman's Day must be fundamentally rotten to the core, mustn't it?
History's a tricky one, because it all depends on where you draw the timelines. At what point you deem those who have irrefutable rights to such and such a thing or place were actually in place.
Didn't we usurp the dinosaurs as lords of this world? And what about lions and sparrows and dodos and baby seals. Weren't they here before Man decided to go about 'his' conquering, demarcating, grabbing and scull-smashing little ways? And if that's ok, because they're 'only' animals, does that suggest that it's not ok if they are humans? A principle we don't... exactly... put into practice, do we, us humans?
But maybe that's what being human is all about. Marking out territory. For all the right reasons, of course. And I dare say your average Joe, leading an averagely ok existence, doesn't really want to pare down his lifestyle just so that someone can fatten up theirs. I don't think this is hypocracy. Just this species' take on reality.
The devil may be in the details, but looked at coldly we need these differences - imagine a world where everyone was exactly the same, believing the same, acting the same, liking the same. All supporting the same team. The same 'nationality'. Differences between men and women? None, indistinguishable, they're the same. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion too.
This would be almost as unimaginably unbearable as eternal life. What would we do? What on earth (or elsewhere) would there be to stimulate us from minute to minute, from year to year, knowing that nothing would stimulate or surprise us, or change or challenge or amuse us, from now until.. forever.
Differences are beautiful. And often similarities also.
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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.
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