Hey again everyone :) Well this week has been a different one for me as I've had some to time off with it being half term. Its great to have a rest and feel refreshed ready to again, especially with all the exciting plans in the pipeline!
Firstly, reflections on another brilliant week doing the God52 programme! Week Seven was all about Love! A brilliant challenge to except! I wont explain all the details as to what I did as I feel it would detract from the whole point but the buzz of helping out those close to me and in one case, a complete stranger, is what it's all about! I was even on the receiving end of a nice gesture! So experienced both sides of the coin that the challenge had to offer... And I loved it!!
Week Eight on the other hand... Wow! Gonna be a really tough one this!! Lets see how this works out!
Now! You've all surely seen the Harlem Shake right? If not where have you been! Basically all you have to is type it in to YouTube and you'll see millions of examples! The dance craze has gone down at a storm! The concept is pretty well explained here.
When I first saw it, I was literally just like "What!?" I honestly thought it was utter stupidity and just an excuse to make yourself look stupid to get on the internet! Very similar to my initial reactions to Gangnam Style. But then I actually started to look into it a bit more... "Why has this got so popular?" and its only in asking that question I found out the beauty of it. It connects people. It slaps division in the face and says "who cares!?" The simplicity and humour involved as well as not needing the knowledge to understand a cultural concept such as language or norms makes it so appealing for everyone to get involved and have a right laugh! How beautiful is that!?
This lead me to write about something that has been prominent in my life at the moment and that is my opinion on status. Yep! Little may we know but status is all around us. Just look at Facebook! It's entire concept thrives on it. Even tweets really are posting status updates about certain events going on worldwide or individually. Whether you like it or not, humanity depends on status... which isn't necessarily a bad thing! Its when it gets unbalanced that issues start to arise. Lets face it no one wants to be at the bottom of the pile do they? But an unfortunate fact of life is that people live in this way. People are craving to be at the top of the social ladder and some will do whatever it takes to climb it. Unfortunately the modern world seems to make it appear that its only material things that can make you achieve it. Latest fashions, lots of money, the latest Apple product (Surface and Microsoft is far better! :P) and I've been very guilty of being sucked into this mind set. Even down to big debates, the issue is status. Gay couples wanting marriages for them to legalised is a classic one of many examples I could list. They see marriages having a bigger status than civil partnerships but why? What gives that idea? They're both public declarations of a couple's love for each other - one, if followed as a religious act is done in the presence of God. But in terms of humanity what gives us the right to decide that is more valuable than the other? Its actually the love that matters in this instance surely? Not "our declaration means more than yours!" said like a child in the playground! That links back to a previous blog post. A huge part of the Christian faith is that actually the last shall be first! (Matt 20:16). In my opinion if the world just tried to level this 'playing field' so that everyone was equal to everyone else in society then is it possible we wouldn't have half the problems man cause itself? I think that's plausible...
So if these social phenomenon's keep on happening and go viral, I think we can learn how to all connect with each other and not judge, snub and divide one another.
So you heard it here first - Could the Harlem Shake change the world for good? I think it could lay down the guidelines on how to and see where we go from there!!
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