DIVERSITY at hand......

Diversity is not what we read every other day about it or as it is being portrayed in the mainstream media. It is that we do enjoy and accept, is what we want for us alone. Diversity is that we can live on and see in Self, ourselves. So, its not the diversity of colour, race, or gender. Its how we want to live it, digest it, and absorb it. Imagine, sitting on your couch at midnight, and watching the late 90s- early 2000s famous HBO TV series “Sex & the City”, you suddenly get the desire to write like the character ‘Carrie Bradshaw’, Why? Does her character incite your inner hunger and desire to express yourself, your very own Diversity? Is Carrie Bradshaw talking about the entwinement of “the Human Identity and the Diversity” and “Sex and the City”? But what I get inspired and start to write, is, of the approach about the Fluidity in human’s Identity in a very diversified social setting of a metropolitan city.

In my case, it’s my very own Diversity and my independent Lifestyle that I, as a young Muslim wished for, but couldn’t live on in my homeland, Pakistan. Though according to the specifications of DIVERSITY, I was born and raised in a very diversified culture, grown up with 4 languages simultaneously, three different lifestyles; home (Persian), school (Pakistani) and altogether the future life (International) that our parents dreamed for us, which they intensely tried to give us though. But still something was missing, that was the Diversity of the Self (my SELF). “Diversity is about what makes each of us unique and includes our backgrounds, personality, life experiences and beliefs, all the things that make us who we are. It is a combination of our differences that shape our view of the world, our perspective, and our approach”.

So, I searched and tried to experience as much as I can for myself this ideal Diversity of my own, which was and is only mine, which I am also very proud of. As a teenager, I read about almost all the mythologies and the belief systems of the world including distance learning Bible course. Because as a young Muslim, it was a huge question mark for me, how God (Allah) can have a son and a life partner/wife and so many people also believe it tobe true. And secondly, if HE has/had a son and a life partner/wife, why not anymore? Here I really don’t want to discuss about religion, but for me, it was more about knowing, what people like, live and wish for tobe. So, I was anxious to communicate and connect, to learn different languages, beliefs, and cultural/ethnic groups. Maybe it was not about them, it was about only me, what I really am, what I want tobe and how I want to live on with my ‘Self’, my ‘diversity’. To be honest, I was similarly open in my intimate adventures, though always more attracted to body with brains. Some people may feel comfortable to be categorized in different terms of Hetro, Homo, Intersex etc. but in my opinion, Identity is individual and fluid. “Identity is a combination of characteristics, attributes, experiences, or behaviors that make us each who we are. Many of these dimensions of diversity give meaning to our identity: For example, “I am a parent, I am a doctor, I am from New York, I am Opera fan.” All of these are elements of an individual's identity.”

But what I didn’t know at that phase of my life and hated most, now I can say loud and like it too, “Identity is fluid”. I wondered, why people always want tobe discrete in their intimate hours but at the same time, want to eat the forbidden fruit, which results in exposure. Wondered, what they/We (Self) are hiding and why. Though they/we all know, there is no Paradise anymore, where we are living and will be lost, if being known, what we (humans) have done/doing. Now, I know for sure, it wasn’t the fear of Known rather of Knowing, who we really are, a Diversified creation of a nonpareil Entity,’God’, who Himself is very diversified beyond limits. As according to Abrahamic scriptures God himself has said more often, “I have created my beloved Creation (humans) in my Image”. And something which had been lost in the veils of time, is the diversity of that Image. Though my query may still anger many believers, but I must ask, “Why the Image is only Binary, when the Original is Multidimensional and Diversified?”

But let’s focus on just one aspect of diversity, ‘Diversity of Gender’ which is more related to human identity. According to Abarahamic scriptures God says, “I have created my beloved Creation (humans) in my Image”. Completely theoretically, if we explore the identity and diversity in detail, one can easily see the contradictions or again the fluidity in retrospect. According to the story, the first human, ‘Adam’, was created from mud (soil) and the God had blown his breath into him. Though the second human, ‘Eve’, was created from the first, ‘Adam’, not once again from a new mud pile. So, in a way, the human is a combination of Identity and Diversity, a combination of Spirit and Body, which makes him, partially God partially human. As to the first humans before eating the forbidden fruit, living among the angels in the paradise, they both didn’t know their gender or their identity. Even furthermore, before Eve was being created, Adam felt alone and asked for a companion without any gender specifications and that’s why Eve was created. So, when go back to the notion of God’s own Image in human’s creation, has God Himself some specific gender or the combination of all genders or fluid. So, why stress on the later, the Image (human) to be Binary, Hetro, Trans etc., when the Original Himself has no specification of Gender, Colour or Race etc. and is very diversified and multidimensional. And the same goes to the individual and the collective identity of humans and the diversity of their social life. And for this same Diversity, some of us do accept, enjoy, and live on our own diversity in the presence of our fluid Selves (Self).

But do we still need, or do we still urge for the confirmation from a wider diversity to accept our Diversity, our Identity before we own it, accept it ourselves or is it our social fabric that urges us to do so, not Us!