IMHO: The “spectrum” conundrum or is it?

As a man in my fifties, I am assumed to lack the understanding of modern value and belief systems held by my socially erudite kids. Maybe I am lacking the verbiage and colloquialisms of today and present a rather mundane view of things and happenings. I conferred with my wife, and she gleefully agreed that I might be losing my ability to grasp the nuance of modern vocabulary and hence relate.

Such viewpoints from many people have given me plenty of reasons to muse and be amused about my inadequacies.

I have always believed that we humans have the ability and somewhat innate desire to package old things in new ways for new generations to consume. Most of it is for palpable reasons addressing societal angst, desires, situations and sometimes, anger. Spectrum is such a word that has been consistently used around me to explain mental states, gender, autism, learning disabilities, ideologies, education, politics and the like. I realize that this word is inherently welcoming and aims to include the diaspora that we are. It foments a reckoning amongst us that we are diverse, that we are different, that we are wired differently, that we come in shades and hues; that we are bound together for reasons we don’t question or need to debate.

In my former life, I worked as as researcher and the word spectrum was frequently used in the word of light; UV to IR and VIBGYOR in the middle. You could also relate the Gaussian function to a spectrum of random happenings or situations. Everything in the world of science was an exhilarating excursion into randomness and fluidity with absolutes being questioned and redefined again and again. But the moment you walk into the world of societal gimmicks, we seem to lose that ability to converse and relate to the human world. And yes, I am talking to people who have a science background and who seem to have lost that train of thought and observation.

I have also come to realize that the word spectrum is being flippantly used by protagonists with an overt disdain to what we common-folk assume as absolutes. Does that inclination center around wanting to be included? Does that notion get us to believe that we are all in the same melting pot being churned by an invisible hand? Is the intent to make us feel like one? Is it to drive acceptance and purposeful dialogue? Is it to see reason?

I wholeheartedly and unequivocally believe so.

But I wonder about the resistance from the masses who have decidedly taken a stance of absoluteness within their own flowery and colorful corner of the world. What are they afraid of? What tradition or value systems are being challenged? What hypocrisy are they trying to hold close to their hearts? And what slur are they wearing on their sleeves?

A spectrum does have absolutes, but the absolutes have gradients, and every infinitesimal manifestation of a variance is not only true in science, but visceral and real in humans.

So, to the so called “purveyors” of man-made human values and ecclesiastical thought, I say; grow up; enjoy the human cult we are in; diverse, different, divergent and democratic.