Compartmentalization Of One's Place In Society

As many of you know, I live in a supported living environment, which simply means the due to my physical disability I have 24 hour care. On the whole however I am quite independent and am always up to some activity. I really do have a curious and thoughtful mind. This is in sharp contrast to many of the people in my building who for lack of a better phrase, regardless of the severity or mildness of their condition don't have a "life" outside of the institutional framework. That is everything about their existence revolves around this facility. They may go outside but only to the local shopping mall or occasionally a movie theatre. There was a constant complaint that they are board or in other ways disgruntled and yet they do nothing to alter that state. As you can imagine, this results in a very routine life. For them every day is essentially the same as the one before it and frequently the names of each day don't seem to matter. A Wednesday has just as much importance as a Friday, which anyone working a standard week would know is definitely not the case. Friday is the beginning of the beloved weekend, and itself something I get excited about 😃

I've been in this facility for about seven years now and many times I've tried to encourage people in the building to broaden their horizons and do more. I mean we live in a day and age where we are simply flooded with information and opportunities… How could one not have an outside interest or opinion upon which to expand their life upon? Whenever I bring up this point, people asked me what they should do instead of looking inside of themselves to consider what they want to do. 

"You will never be satisfied with life, if you ask others what to do. You must ask yourself, what you want to do with life."

This cyclical behaviour of people asking others what they should do and then rejecting the ideas only to go back into the same routines repeats constantly. Honestly this is now something I find a little annoying, because many of the people living in my building could be doing something more rewarding with their lives, but there is always something that is blocked them. I think I might have an idea now what that issue might be.

Is it possible that they have locked themselves into a social cast like system? Perhaps they believe that because of their condition and because of where they live that they are compartmentalized into a limited set of opportunities. Very much like the caste system in other countries. You are born into a level of society and that is where you must state. That may sound like a ridiculous thought, but I am reminded of a friend who during a meeting of one of the groups I belong to, and I'm paraphrasing said "We are the elites, of the disabled in our age group. "At the time I thought this was a very arrogant statement. But now I am reconsidering this, although not from such a literal point of view. At the time in the group I was attending we were talking about the geriatric disabled. People born in the early 1960s. We grew up in a totally different culture especially at the beginning and there was an implied social cast: "You are not normal. You are different. The opportunities in life for you will be very limited." While this is an exaggerated statement, we did take subtler messages like this to heart and even to this day at 66 years old I still have to fight the occasional belief that I feel pulling me into this limited set of opportunities. I think that is what my friend meant. Analogous to electrons trapped in the valence rings of an atom. Each electron stays within its own orbit until forcibly nudged out of it. It is not a perfect analogy and I am by no means a chemist so please take only the very general concept of this idea, in other words don't shoot the writer of this article for being inaccurate. What I mean to say is our people locked in their own or mental orbits in my facility? Do they just feel that they are part of this caste system and must stay within their own orbit.

As we all know, even though we are thinking beings of emotions can override logical thought. And if you think you belong in one orbit, or one cast you emotionally hold yourself to that level. This way of approaching the problem does make a lot of sense to me. I am not sure of the solution, aside from nagging everyone around me to death to get off their butts and do something with their lives. Which I will continue to do, so not to worry. But, if what I propose here is true then there are undoubtedly others who are equally compartmentalized and limited by the very nature of the way they are feeling and thinking about their lives. So this is no small matter and I shall take it with me as I moved through my various activities moving forward.

Down the road there will likely be a video companion to this article because it is rather profound from my perspective. Videos however take time to get right and in the meantime I would love to hear from you, dear reader.

Do you think the ideas put forward in this article have merit? Let me know your experiences and thoughts. In the meantime of course have a great day and take care
Patrick

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