AS IF

I have a question for you. 

It’s something I’ve been wondering about for quite some time. 

Here it is.

Would it be enough to act “as if”? 

Could the world move forward in a different way without point-for-point correcting all the errors of the past?

Or is that truly impossible? 

A little background.  I am a white, cis-gendered, raised in what some would call a “first world” country as a Christian and a liberal, politically and culturally.  Less than a decade ago, I moved to the other side of the world, to South Africa – which is often referred to as a “third world country”. I am now very much existing as a minority – about 7 % of the country’s population is Caucasian with two very distinct cultures within that number. I live in KwaZulu-Natal, the home of the Zulu people and my personal world is made up of almost entirely of black people, including my immediate family. 

While I thought I was openminded, an ally, spiritual but not religious before moving to SA, my world was turned upside down in every way here. I am a far better person for it, and I wish that everyone could experience life from an opposite point of view on an intimate level. That would change the world for the better, quickly and easily but is likely not going to happen. 

Still, it’s been the ultimate lesson in being human. And an even bigger lesson in anything being possible.  

It is impossible these days to ignore the strong push by those who have long been in a place of privilege to hold onto all they have.  It is everywhere - the current administration in the US, the pervasive mistreatment of immigrants there and around the world, the devastation over the control of land, the continued alarming mistreatment of black, brown and other non-transparent skinned people.  And the need to remove the hard-won rights of women, both individually and as a gender, along with the rights of those who choose to live as they feel vs, their anatomical or sexual preferences. 

It's a lot to contend with. So many rights to be restored, so many lives destroyed.  It’s hard to know what to protest for first, isn’t it? Or how to attack the incredible number of issues which need to be addressed, solved, and compensated for.  

I’m wondering.  Can all of this be sorted out in the ways we have used to date? In courts, legislation, relabeling, and other traditional ways of making amends? Or has it gotten so overwhelming that the majority is just paralysed or putting their collective heads in the sand?  There is so much fear that it’s become like a thick fog – which only allows things to be hidden better. 

What if we need to do things differently?  In the work that I do, there’s the concept of “acting as if”, meaning taking on the behaviours, habits and mannerisms of the person you’d like to be, versus the person you’ve been, in an effort to follow the rules and roles you have been taught. 

I wonder what would happen, if rather than applying small plasters and Band-Aids here and there, we began to act collectively as the world we would like to be.  Those of us who see that the status quo is untenable, that our planet cannot continue to bear the load we put on her, that there is one human race and that individuals have the right to live as who they know they are vs. according to someone else’s construct from hundreds of years ago.  What worked back then is not working now, that much is very clear.  

Obviously, the usual channels for change can and should still be used. Protests will and should continue. We all do what we are able to do. But for those of us on the sidelines, feeling powerless and defeated, perhaps this is the way we support ourselves, our loved ones and each other.  Maybe we are called simplistic, yet nothing can truly change without the visioning of something different.

Without acting as if, we may never know what’s possible.

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