A break from my regular schedule. I've decided to keep my YouTube videos limited to the weekdays when my son is at school and I have a house free of noise. He's a noisy little blighter! Anyway, on with the show.

I had been around difference since day dot

My first brush with 'actual' difference was when I was a very young boy in a Scottish primary school. I think I was six at the time. I had spent 5 years beforehand living in Russia, it had been all that I had known, the kids from Russia. I essentially grew up with them and hadn't even realised that we were all different. I had a ton of toys for instance when they had none or very little, and they all had the same, or so they thought. Even their clothes matched. Anyway, I was six, back in Scotland and experiencing a radical shift in day to day life. Even the locals, my countrymen were calling me "Russiano" which was all part of the territory I expect.

I remember the first time I stood in front of an Indian. He was new to my class and I can remember the excitement we all felt when there was a new boy there; we could all feel the itch of curiosity when someone new started, it was exciting, and a break from the regular monotony of classroom politics. I remember the day I finally talked to him, I sat next to him in the class and noted that he had a different smell to him, not a repugnant one, but different. I can remember asking him why he smelled of Curry. Now as a grown adult I recognise that was because his regular intake of food was entirely different to ours. Cows were sacred in his country and they didn't consume dairy products. Thinking about it now I may have smelled somewhat cheesy or milky to him. Now I was a kid, and an honest one at that, so it seemed that because I had never encountered an Indian before that I was naturally curious. It didn't take long before him and his brother were holding me down and knocking lumps out of me in the playground.

I'm a sensitive soul

I've always been a sensitive lad. Where the other boys were climbing over each other and kicking one another in the face as a laugh under the guise of play fighting I was one of them kids that was sat in the corner picking flowers with the girls, or playing football with the boys. I wasn't one for aggression in any shape or form, I'm still not. It meant that I was picked on a lot by the kids that didn't understand; I was beaten up for being a 'fairy' or had my face smashed in for laughing when the local knuckle-dragger got into trouble. My Mum, lovely that she was, believed that I had to fend for myself to make my way, and that which I did, mostly with kids twice my size. It wasn't long before I learned how to defend myself through trial and error. Something that I feel I never should have had to do, or endure.

Yet despite all of those harsh lessons that I had to live, this was a time long gone. This was a time when difference was barely tolerated never mind understood. That was a time when you were put on deaths door for merely supporting a different football team. Or was it a time long gone? You tell me? We may be far more tolerant over those that have previously been regarded as minority groups, but perhaps we're making the same mistake as the Romans did? When Christianity was fast becoming the dominant religion in ancient Rome, and making gradual appearances amongst the Roman Senate, it had moved from its roots of being a benign and all-encompassing religion to that of no tolerance and swift execution for non-believers. Those that had a thirst for science and were outspoken about such were swiftly executed in more horrendous ways than you could imagine. Is that us now? Do we learn nothing? It seems not.

Just another minority seeking to maintain dominance

If we look at Feminism for example we can see a rising dominance of female rights, and anyone that wants to speak about their own rights are swiftly smashed down, forgetting that this was once how those that enforce such communication brutality were at the receiving end of. Like in Rome, how Christianity was once a persecuted, benign and all-encompassing religion eventually sought to retain dominance over all else, forgetting the nature it rose above from.

Without knowing our past, we are doomed to repeat it.

~Me

Feminism is only an example, though, I see it amongst all the other isms and minorities. Race, religion, sex, gender, etc. All seeking to hold dominance over the other whilst completely forgetting their previous discriminated against nature. 

Let's be clear here though I'm making no blanket statements. There are many, many, many people that fall into these categories but understand the difficulties they, themselves have went through, so I'm judging no-one and making no over-reaching statements at all. I understand that everyone is different and what is good for one person is not necessarily good for the other.

Difference should be exciting!

Doesn't it excite you though? To be in a place where your kind is almost unheard from and to sit there and learn the culture? The belief system? The habits? the ways of the people? The food? It's something entirely new to learn from, friends to make and lessons to learn. It shouldn't be something to be afraid of, no. Humans are the same globally, let's start to learn from each other than pulling away!

Thanks for listening :)