The Pulse of Who you Are.
The phenomenon of globalization has impacted on civilization with a new race where one person can possess four different mixes, a combination from both bi-racial parents. While chromosomes blend, the now diluted dominant genes tend to divide itself equally, producing a new strain, ethnically indeterminant with characteristics that form a spectacular cocktail of personalities. As the person emerges, lost in finding the home to their inner pulse, anxious of other’s perception of themselves: the urgency of belonging surfaces, depending which country they are residing when questions are asked. Skidding to the front arises a protected amour, answering to an innocent question, “Where is home for you?”.
“I’m a global citizen,” Clearly the arrogant projection protects the vulnerable hidden façade. In just 4 words, it establishes that home is everywhere, clocking airmiles, multi-lingual, with worldwide connections, the implication of a privileged life. A quick fix to hide behind the insecurity of not belonging proceeds to pick from a multi-identity hat, to save the moment.
To belong is a human core of tribalism, unfortunately this new ethnicity, small in number to employ ethnic group loyalty. Double bi-racial is judged internally, almost always lead to superiority and can contribute to social division and conflict.
Then there is the exquisite blend of East meets West, an upcountry bi-racial man where his pointed nose, fair hairy skin, basketball height, stands out amongst his Asian village compatriots, where this small ethnic group loyalty are few “Where is home for you?”
“From this seaside village,” says he humbly, yet unsure. The inner pulse of insecurity, uncomfortable embarrassment projects the absentee father’s folly years ago. The impossibility of pretense gives way to agents knocking on the door, promising stardom on the next upcoming TV production. Purely a stroke of luck from the father’s genes of stunning combination with his Asian mother with little acting talent. That can be arranged assures the agent. His village horizon broadens as he moves to the city hopefully erasing the inner rejection left by one man’s self-gratification, and using the enviable gene pool to save his dignity by inventing himself on screen.
Tackling the LGBTQ or the non-gender movement, or the gender transition; “the pulse of who you are” is not about gender definition, maybe they are the true definition of Global Citizen. It has been thought that they embody two different souls.
As it is true the sense of belonging is with all of us. Cave dwellers had to distinguish between clansmen as survival depended on staying alive. So who would casually choose a lifestyle inflicted by nature given the likelihood of such rejection and hatred.
Long ago in a hospital in Honolulu where my newly born bi-racial son flew an eight-hour flight from Guam to undergo a heart repair at two weeks old, shared an ICU room with another baby having undergone one of the many operations to fix and repair what is medically known as Ambiguous Genitalia. It is a rare condition in which the baby’s external genitals do not appear to be clearly male or female.
In my anxiety of parental decisions for the survival of my son, born with a dysfunctional heart valve, a far bigger issue in my comparison. You die without a heart was my reasoning, you don't die without genitalia. How ignorant and uninformed I was at that immature age, scared to the core of losing my son. Yet Susan and I comforted each other as mothers do, while anxiously waiting in the recovery room after the operation, the true burden of motherhood, etched on our face. Forty-two years later, my son, happily married to his Thai wife, pursuing a great career, I often think of what has become of the un-named baby, now also forty-two to ask, “Where is home for him/her?”
Ask yourself “The pulse of who you are” at this very moment. It is a challenge to explore your darkest spirit and your luminous soul. I took a moment to do similar, stripped off all vanity and can say I am comfortable with my truth.
