IS IT REALLY NECESSARY to compartmentalize our life? I asked this question when I was reading an article in the Guardian newspaper, saying that X (Twitter) has been taken over by the right wing. It wasn’t, but it made me to question the following: why is it that we have to put everything into precise boxes? Right wing versus left wing, Christianity versus the rest, being pro-Brexit versus anti-Brexit, etc.
I have been asking this question for a while as I struggle to attach labels to my own life, political views, belief systems and eating preferences. Take Brexit as an example: I was definitely against the UK leaving the EU, but while I was extremely disappointed in the beginning, I also understood eventually as to why people voted to leave the EU. I am living in the EU now, and I struggle to understand their policies. I really like the EU as a force for good, but realistically speaking, it has become a huge bureaucratic machine where the view of an ordinary person doesn’t matter anymore. Everything is decided in Brussels, with most European Union’s employees not really caring or understanding the ordinary folk. I lived in Brussels, I saw it with my proper eyes. You spend most days on long lunches with friends, and party in the evening in Jeux d’Hiver, a nice club, no doubt, but very much detached from the daily reality of people whom the EU is supposed to serve.
Therefore, I am both pro-EU and against EU’s bureaucracy – what does it make me? A right wing? Left wing? Or something in the middle?
Twitter (X) wasn’t taken by the right wing, because I see on my own feed page both views of the debate (left and right), and if anything it makes me laugh. How it possible, I wonder, to be able to assign a definite political label on someone? I am very pro strong family unit, I believe in God, and I don’t agree that something meaningful can be achieved when protesters (for whatever reason) glue themselves to the road. Does it make me right wing?
But I am also pro-diversity, definitely pro LGBT rights, and democracy – does it make me left wing?
I have no idea!
I am also a Christian, and I believe in God, but nothing can stop me from doing Tarot cards because I also believe in something that is beyond a particular set of dogma. Does it make me a witch? Am I failed Christian? Or I can remain being a Christian despite my Tarot cards and taking moon phases seriously?
I wonder.
The same goes to my eating preferences. I made several attempts to become a vegetarian, but it didn’t last, simply because my son needs proteins and I don’t have enough energy to make us two separate meals. What does it make me? A failed vegetarian or an occasional vegetarian, or a hypocrite when it comes to food?
And thus, I balance in my life between different views and opinions, simply because I don’t think that putting a precise box on someone, is a way to go, there should be something in the middle, something flexible, and leaving the room to a person to change his/her mind in regards to political views, belief system, and eating preferences.
What do you think?
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