Summary: Episode #24 – US/THEM/SYNTHESIS - Is it possible to have synthesis? How can we have Synthesis in society when there is so much of “us” versus “them”? Pearl of wisdom from Santa Monica: the light within can really touch someone out there that you may not know. What you do in your own home can seriously affect someone on the outside. SYNTHESIS: 1) the combination of ideas to form a theory or a system. 2) The production of chemical compounds, by reaction from simpler materials. Fawn: I have an issue with “simpler materials” for so many reasons. If you're going to take it outside the science scope (I'm going to talk about synthesis), like communication with people and culture, using the word “simple” is a mistake. If you look at something through a microscope, you can get more powerful microscopes and keep going and going and going and going as you look at any given thing. Does anything ever stop being or existing? Like numbers, is everything infinite? You look at something through a microscope, you see the smaller particles. You magnify it even more, you see even more. A flower is complex. If you look at the design of anytihing in life, if you really look at things, everything is incredibly complex. Another thing about synthesis; another definition is to combine a number of different pieces into a hole. And it made me think of the term “melting pot”. The description of a culture or society being a Melting pot always bothered me. It never sat right with me growing up. I heard that a lot, but I never really thought about why it bothered me. I was always asked (it was actually demanded of me) to erase my culture; to erase my identity, not only growing up in the United States, like to become Americanized, but also within my family who was very terrified of having to escape from a country that was in turmoil, to erase who I was. And even though my family loved their culture and wanted to keep their culture, they had to flee the country that they were originally from, come to a new place and where they had to deal with a whole new set of problems and persecution in so many ways. There was this confusion of, do we assimilate? Do we keep our traditions or get rid of them? Do we teach our traditions and culture to the next generation? How do we do that, when the culture you live in despises you and the next generation is caught in between these two worlds? I noticed this peril not just with the family I was raised in, but with so many different families across so many different cultures other than mine. I watched the struggle with: do we keep the traditions, do we do a dare speak together, out in public in this other language? I just don’t like the analogy of a “melting pot”. Instead of a melting pot, I think it should be a dish that holds the integrity of every ingredient not something that melts and becomes something else. I don't want to melt. I do not want to melt. I want all of my cultures. I want my languages. I want everybody else's cultures and everybody else's languages, everybody else's fashions, everybody else's ideas to hold their own and contribute a vast delicious balance of tastes that light up your life force when you taste it. I want it to remain whole. I don't think it's a good idea to melt into one thing and lose your unique flavor. I think if we can appreciate the integrity of each individual ingredient, that it will lead to world peace. We talk about assimilating and what that means. We ask if there’s a constant assembly line of hate. The focus may end on one group, only to focus on the next group. Eventually, you will be the target so best to stop the hate now. When your mind is open enough, you can see the profound in
