Tag: death

“Why are all the angels white? Why ain’t there no black angels?”

Posted on by philipdodson

ali

Another legend from my childhood passes away and this one more than Bowie or more than Prince, has an impact.

Muhammad Ali or Cassius Clay as he was originally named, was part of my early childhood in 1970’s and I remember watching his fights on TV with my Dad, who was a massive boxing fan, when there were only 3 channels, yes I am that old.

Even as a child I liked the rebel, I liked someone who stood out, who challenged things, who was not part of the establishment, who was prepared to be different.

I didn’t know his story really then, although I remember my Dad telling me some of it, however, I instinctively liked him and he was a childhood hero.

To me, and it is all opinion, he will always be the greatest boxer and in a time when for me boxing was still a great sport with true legends. It had not been so totally corrupted by money and greed then.

This is one of my favourite quotes of his:

“Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn’t choose it, and I didn’t want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name, and I insist people using it when speaking to me and of me.”

I’m a huge fan of Brene Brown and she talks in her books about vulnerability and the courage it takes to step into the ‘ring’, ‘get knocked down’ and rise up strong. Well, Ali literally did that inside and outside of the ring all his life. To me, he was a brave man, who was not afraid to be vulnerable. He also went on to do lots of great things in his life despite having Parkinsons disease.

A great man, a great inspiration, a true rebel and the greatest boxer – RIP

Fear of different

Posted on by philipdodson

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As the industrialised world has blurred everything into a mass product, service, opinion and standardised almost all, we have become almost hysterically fearful of different.

Yet the thing that propelled us, from the hunter/gatherers on the plains of East Africa to settling all over this planet, and all that has happened in that 70,000-year journey as a human race, was the curiosity that drove us to be different and create new things.

Now we have settled for compliance, acceptance of one voice of the myth makers, no matter how wrong it sounds and no matter how much deep down it conflicts with our values. We accept war, racism, poverty, absurdly grotesque wealth inequality, industrialised agriculture causing unimaginable suffering to animals, the destruction of our environment and countless other seemingly obvious wrong doings.

Fear of different has paralysed the human race.

Has this 70,000-year journey been all to just do as we are told, to become a drone and trudge like zombies to our graves, just being a cog in their machine, removed and replaced with another when we are no longer fit for purpose?

The only way to break this paralysis is for all of us as individuals to do our bit, to question, to be curious and to strive to find new and different solutions to continue the evolution.

Different will keep this human race alive, not compliance. Break free, leave fear behind and be different.

We can all make a difference, none of us are too small. As the Dalai Lama said ‘if you think you are too small to make a difference try sleeping with a mosquito’.