Full Circle

 Someone, or to be more truthful, more than one person has noted that the times of our life and of the greater world travel in circles.  There is a certain repetition to the world, the seasons, our history, ourselves and time itself.  But, it has been said that rather than simply being a single circle, there are many circles, each one slightly offset from the last along a line of travel.  Such a diagrammatic thought experiment allows us to envision that each circle repeats, but with slight modifications, slight changes and slight perturbations that give it a unique formula, similar to the original but also slightly more evolved.

We often say that the repetitions in our lives create a sense of order and, for many, a sense of purpose.  Ritual has reason and reason has its foundations in ritual.  Societies and their peoples define their lives with the cyclical natures of the sun, in separate yet similar circadian rhythms.  Waking up each morning, we submit ourselves to the standards of a routine with each day being nearly the same as the last, but with slight forward momentum toward a goal often unrealized until we have, if fortunate enough, have found ourselves somehow having arrived upon.

Entire societies arise and fall for similar reasons from one to the next, with each one being, perhaps with a bit of optimism, arising in that next slightly offset circle further along the evolutionary line of humanity?

 Why do I bring this up?  What premise might I have to prelude this post with such ponderings?

 It is, perhaps, in the fact that I find myself captive within my own family's life circle.  Let me explain....

My family heritage arises from a country from which my great grandparents on my father's side were exiled.  I suppose the word exiled is a bit weak of a word.  In reality, a more apt word would be "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide".  This was the case of my ancestors living within a country that did not wish them there.  The country is now known as Turkey and the ancestors of mine in question were Armenian.  You probably already know at some level, the events that led up to the mass deportation and execution of up to 1.5 million Armenians from a country that they called home.  I won't go into it in any great detail here, but will, rather, leave to you the dear reader, to entertain the perusal of the vaults of knowledge in the great lands of Google to dive deeper and further as your curiosity lends itself to.  

The great circle analogy manifests itself in my own life, from my own lens, my own vantage, and one that is mine and mine alone, as I witness what I see as a similar lack of welcome and a purge of entire groups within the country I live in today.  Through my travels, I have visited many countries and have lived long enough to see the rise and fall of empires, the rise of authoritarianism and fascism, and the fall of republics and democracies alike.  As with most empires, the creation of the idea of the "outsider", or "the other" has many translations in many different languages and cultures.  It is a fundamental tribal rally to keep the perceived enemy out.  Hitler created his enemy in the Jewish people.  The Armenians had their label as being "the other" with the Turks and even Columbus saw the people he came upon in the Caribbean as being savage and less than themselves.  Today, I see this in my own country and see it happening again, this time for myself.  The circles continue and while my great grandparents were able to emigrate by the skin of their teeth for freedom, a chance to succeed (and they did), and a new life, so now, do I find myself in rising waters under threat of similar circumstances.

 Realizing these events are coming are not reason in and of themselves to find myself 'escaping'.  Rather, this shall become a great opportunity to visit regions of the world that most westerners seem not to tread.  I hope to find humanity amongst the individuals of the world who live their lives out in relative obscurity and whose ties to the political reasons that lead to such over-turnings of societies are scant to non-existent.   It is, in fact, quite true that my great grandparents lived harmoniously with their Turkish neighbors, spoke their language and had their trust.  It was, in fact, government in far off Ottoman Istanbul, many hundreds of miles away, that created the problem that did not exist.  People are people and, from what I have seen, have the same basic needs and wants for themselves and their families no matter their color, creed, religion or race.  Governments, I have found, plant the seeds of distrust and create the enemies and promote themselves as the guarantor of freedom to the problems they plant and sow.  Until we learn to love each other for our differences and learn how to respect each other for those fascinating differences, we shall be caught in the endless looping circles that empires and their people will forever be subject to.

 I go forward with the intent to find the glimmers of hope and humanity that exist within the souls of the peoples of this world as I travel to the birthplaces of my ancestors with aspirations of connections to be made and friends earned.  A positive attitude and willingness to adapt to change will be paramount.  An understanding that there will be setbacks along the way is inherent.  A choice to see the world for the people that live and share it with each other is the goal.