RE: A Dance called America

[Niven Sinclair <niven@niven.co.uk>]

At 11:23 22/02/00 -0500, you wrote:

beautifully said.

-----Original Message-----

From: owner-sinclair@mids.org [mailto:owner-sinclair@mids.org]On Behalf Of rob

Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 10:47 AM

To: sinclair@mids.org

Subject: Re: A Dance called America

being surrounded by descendants of Scottish and other exports each day...and living in a place where human beings continue to be our #1 export...has led me to some thoughts...

 

    Like any cultural group, whether defined by geography, blood ties, or community of interest, it would not be productive to categorize the components of any group of humans as being any one thing...there is much to be said for individual responsibility and development...

 

    As far as my reading has illuminated, people who came to the New World, including Scots, were a mix of common criminals and intellectuals, military leaders, farmers and slaves; women and men, priests of God and rogues, gay and straight, black and white, good bad and indifferent...Church leaders and those building a New World away from them...the rich and the poor...and out of this list and more, who can tell whom is really which centuries ago..

 

    the story of any great creation is a similar path...history as we read it today is the result of the victor's consolidation of views, for political and intellectual reasons...no matter what the access-to-information-other-than-standard-views that we now enjoy through the internet, sources are limited and great amounts of study take many long years...understanding is elusive...

 

    I think we should all beware the pursuit of categorizing one human group as being bigger-faster-stronger than another...it apparently leads to global wars...the pursuit of individual Sinclair Stories is a good one...it is human beings who accomplish - groups who share or control...

 

 

    I work each day with people from a dozen different established local cultures, the leaders and the criminals, the sacred and the profane...I work with Maritimers around the world and people from around the world who come to live here...

 

                as for those who came here so long ago, some are survivors and builders as individuals, some are not...

                                no matter what their other categorizations...

 

 

                            some Sinclairs were great leaders of humankind...

                                                            some are not...

 

 

                                                    sometimes I'm right,

                                                                sometimes I'm wrong,

                                                                        sometimes what's right for today is wrong three years later...

                                                                                                                                                            rob

 

           

  Rob,

I agree with you entirely because, as human beings, we have a choice for
good or for
evil.  Nevertheless, "that which is born in the bone can never
be driven out of the blood".

Our genes make us what we are.  The nature/nurture argument has
always been with
but I know, at a level far beneath the foundations of reasons and
experience, that we
Sinclairs have always had a special role to play in the affairs of our
fellow men.  Many
have performed this role - others, for fear of failure, have opted out
because they haven't
realised (and, therefore, haven't released) the true talents which lie
within them.

It is the 'extra' which we put into life which turns the ordinary into
the extraordinary.
True, this can be said about anyone but it is time that we, Sinclairs,
re-kindled a belief
in ourselves - not as supermen but as people who have a unique
contribution to make
to the society in which we live.  Position and wealth are not the
determining factors.
The will to work and to win  and to give of ourselves are all that
is necessary.

Niven Sinclair