Reflections on potential

Winter blew in with the solstice this year.

After months of sun, the rain drove in, whipping leaves from the trees and sending people running for cover. The rain lit up in bobbing streetlights, playground swings glistening and twisting in the wind.

The weather gave pause for melancholy reflection.

We waste so much potential in our quest for “best”.

All of the bananas thrown out because they are too short, too long, too whatever it is that people won’t buy.

All the carrots that can’t be sold because they are too twisted. The fruit too speckled.

The people who live a shadow of their full life because they are too troubled, too imperfect for our modern world.

And of course, it’s deeply offensive to conflate people with fruit, but the same thinking is at work.

The logic that says an apple must look a certain way is the same logic that says autistic kids should go to their own school to stop disrupting other kids.

Imagine another world where diversity is valued. Where autistic people are not seen as disabled, but gifted with superpowers. Where different cultural backgrounds are not seen as something to be assimilated away, but as a lens to seeing the world in bright and different ways. Where life mistakes are not reasons for discarding a person, but a well of resilience to draw upon.

Where funny fruit are just that. Funny, fun. Perhaps even something to be cherished.

Where we marvel at the diversity that pervades our material world as well as our society.

It’s a world that only really exists in the imagination. You know, all those boards that are packed with white men because they are “best for the job”. All the senior roles dominated by men because they are “best for the job”. All that potential laid to waste because they are not “best for the job”.

It seems to me that we have an extraordinarily blinkered view of “best”. That “best” looks a lot like “same”.

Best for the job because you look the same as me. Best suited to life because you see it the same as me.

Best to buy and consume because it looks the same as what it should look like.

This feels desperately sad. Limited. Limiting.

I wonder how much better our world might be if we didn’t just give marginalised people a voice, but cherished their perspective. Had the humility to see that we may not have a monopoly on truth.

At the end of the day, the weakest culture is the one that permits no dissenting views. It is brittle, susceptible to the first shock sweeping through. Just as monoculture agriculture is flattened by the first new disease ripping through, inbred culture stutters and fails as its base assumptions unravel.

True strength comes from difference. High yields per hectare come from diversity. This sort of strength and yield is not as efficient in good times when everything is static, stable and predictable. But we don’t live in those times. We really don’t.

We need to value the best of everything, the best in everything. We need the tumult of diversity, the discomfort in recognising that “different to me” may be “better than me”.

I do get it. Confronted with complexity, we want to huddle down into safe places where we feel comforted and familiar. Difference feels hard. It is hard.

But we don’t need to venture out into the wilds. There are people who already live there, who have had their skin seared and soul blasted. All we need to do is welcome them in. Listen to their stories. Heed their lessons.

We can’t waste people. Not any more. We can’t waste stuff either.

The creak of metal and rush of water outside is a reminder of how fragile life is. The city lights blurred out by a fresh skirl. The cars pushing forward with timid confidence, their wipers whipping back and forth.

Life would be so much richer if we let potential bloom.