"What kind of people is TED bringing in now?"

                Disclaimer:

Before reading this piece of mediocre psycological essay about some neurotic guy being totally honest and self-aware of his inner, deepest and darkest thoughts, PLEASE!, be aware that you'll encounter some unpleasant statements about people and some cold auto-annalysis that you may not feel identified or even enjoy. So if you suffer from socio-cultural susceptibility I warn you that this is not something for you to read. Thank you!



           Every person judges according to their senses and how these have been molded by family, society, culture, etc. The way how we've been rised and learned how to know a person before hand, the social retina made of compliments and mockings that our relatives, friends and classmates are some of the possible reasons why we put on practice everytime we meet, see and talk about a person. We cannot avoid judging or pre-judging even if -even when- we want to. It's a natural -or naturalized- condition that is complex to annalyze by us and even more, to be annalyzed by others.



           When I started to watch the TED talk, that old woman wearing that funny dress, the weird way she spoke and the slight movements she made, honestly, I thought to myself "What kind of people is TED bringing to their talks now?" Yes, I know, it's a terrible and violent statement that I suddenly auto-corrected as I also thought "C'mon, you haven't watched a single minute of the clip, just pay attention!" As I said before, and as a matter of justification -if I can even do that-, we all have our judgements naturalized and -that's why- we all need to chill out before opening our mind/mouth.


Then, little by little, I started to feel pitty for her. Lidia Yuknavitch's stories seemed to be taken from a cheap short-film made by a desperate youtuber looking for its view number 100, but you could tell in her glary eyes that it was all true: she had gone through serious struggle along the years. The apparent result that we percieve as 'funny', 'weird', 'dissastrous' was right there, in front of our eyes, in her soft gesticulations, in her difficulty to pronounce simple words, in her nervous manners.

I must admit that her experiences didn't impress me much. As I mention before, they were 'normal' events in which most people are involved every day and still we never notice. What riveted my attention was the way she stood tall amongst them after all the constant pain and vehement agony and how she managed somehow to achieve her dreams.

What I admired in this woman is how she admits and recognizes herself as a misfit. Despite dealing with some outrageous events, she didn't have to change her attitude and appearance towards life and society but went on immutably strong and determined.

I'd like to finish this entry by stating that the huge value on accepting who we are is proportional to how much are we willing to analyse and reconfigure our own naturalized judgements towards ourselves and everyone else.


Jorge Vallejos