Jul

10

Tribal thinking

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Sports is not one of my passions. I leave that to my husband, a die hard Yankees and Celtics fan. A man of eclectic taste who makes no apologies. I find baseball too slow, basketball too fast and tennis just right!

I managed to resist paying attention to all the hoopla about LeBron James. Not interested! Until Dan Gilbert’s petty letter started circulating the web that is. I caught a glimpse of a couple of paragraphs and that’s when I tuned in. There are many aspects of this that rub me the wrong way but then again, what’s new?

Then, there is the story about Nirupama Pathak, a 22 year old Indian woman found dead in her bedroom. Her death is considered an honor killing and her mother has been arrested as the prime suspect. It appears this young woman had violated the rules of her caste and class by falling in love with a man of lower caste.

These two stories began to intertwine in my head. On one hand a basketball superstar being trashed all over the internet for choosing something other than what his “tribe” wanted him to choose. On the other hand, a young woman of 22 being murdered for following her heart.

Perils of tribal behavior is all I can think about. Our expectations of each other, the burden and pressure imposed on so many people by their “tribe.”

Whether it’s the tribe we were born in, or the tribe that adopted us along the way, the tribe we created or became part of, whether it’s family, work, social group . . . does it really matter? The basics remain the same. Conform or else.

How many dreams have died in the process? How many lives compromised? What is the true cost of the unbearable influence of the tribe? Where do we – as individuals – stand? How much of who we think we are is a mere reinterpretation of our tribal rules and regulations?

I suspect that so many of the rules we live by are nothing but payback for generations of lost dreams and aspirations.

Robert Frost comes to mind these days.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

It’s all about the choices we make, isn’t it?

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