You don't have to go big and you are home

 

It was later in my years when I saw the phrase "go big or go home". It referred to a family who came from England, and settled in Canada in the earlier part of the 20th century. 

Not all settlers were cruel but there was this attitude that they came with intention to succeed and although there were people who had lived for centuries on Turtle Island, many Europeans were confident in the ways they could organize society for a good future.

However we came from a traumatized history even though we couldn't see it. If you were upper class you had to prove your worth through status symbols (big home, shiny possessions and a superior attitude). 

Not everyone followed this. There have always been people who knew who they were and what they could do. This was not based on comparisons to class or whatever was expected by others. It came from within and before European contact the first people gave that to their children and grand-children.

Since then Residential Schools traumatized children even more than European children. They inserted beliefs which kept us on the edge of self-worth. The teachings of a Palestinian mystic tried to introduce us to the kingdom of belonging, but the hierarchy soon screwed that up, because... well, hierarchy.

Positionality rejigged the wisdom of life so that men would maintain power over women, parents power over children, and upper class landowners over peasants.

Eve was blamed for Adam's expulsion from the Garden, and throughout the journey women were shown as morally inferior, messing up the plan. Men were natural in their violence. Women were emotional, mad, evil or witchlike.

Now, of course I cannot prove this because I am not Margaret ... Atwood,  Mead or MacMillan. I don't have a photographic memory either, so the teachings as they came melted into my life experiences.

But one thing I know, people are worth more than media give them credit for. And another thing is the habit of hierarchy to place a few above the worth of everyone else. 

Good leaders, educated and wise are worth a lot. Much has been saved because of wise leaders. Take Jesus for example. His teachings were barely understood by hierarchical men who nailed him to a cross because his teachings did not seem to elevate the appointed hierarchies above the sanctity of life itself.