Light bulb? No, Eureka.
Sundays seems to always have a beneficial effect on one's reflective abilities. Having only watched a couple of films this year I attemped a catch up today with two at the National Film and Sound Archives (NFSA) cinema. There was roughly an hour between them and that was enough to motivate me to pull out my pad and get down some thoughts, something I've been slack on lately. Obviously the right bits of the brain started ticking over because it was only a minute or two into the second film that a bomb went off inside me. For years and years I've felt that I'm passionate about culture. That passion has led me to travel to very different places, attempt a handful of different languages, involve myself in diverse communities, study international development, and finally pursue work in foreign affairs and international policy. There are few things I've been more sure of than my love of different cultures. But as I sat watching the opening scene of 'women without men', a beautifully shot and powerful Iranian film, I realized, and promptly grabbed my pad out to scribble in the dark, that it's not culture, it's humanity. Culture, to me, describes the practices and languages of different groups (normally I'm thinking of different countries). I now realize that what has always filled me with wonder is the common humanity that exists across vastly different cultures. Fragility, compassion, love, grief. It's humanity I love - different cultures have just provided the strongest proof of these common traits, a case of correlation being mistaken for causality, if you like. This may seem a trivial point, what does the distinction really mean? It means it's not about the differences, though these are obviously valuable too, it's about the similarities that exist despite the differences. It's about being in love with what makes good people good. The upshot is more room for wonderment, for joy at living and sharing life with others. The difference possesses liberation and vitality, and to me, it's a little revelation.