Tackling The Taboos

or some reason, a huge portion of our existence is based on heavily concealing everything; it starts from hiding underneath our blankets from wicked night monsters until ignoring major world issues, and unfortunately we couldn’t apply the same strategy used against childhood monsters with everyday issues —and that’s exactly what's happening. Most of us grew up in an atmosphere of silencing when it comes to speaking up about things labeled as ‘dangerous, do not approach,’ and we couldn’t even question it, as if ignoring particular sensitive topics will cancel their existence.

The reasons behind the blindfold philosophy are countless, but one of the obvious and important reasons is the poorly played game of parenting. Most parents aspire to have their good kids out of trouble and, as long as you’ve rose sunglasses covering your eyes, you’ll think that you’re out of trouble —some people do believe that ignorance is bliss, after all. So, instead of being taught how to tactfully approach tense topics, we are just pulled away from them. Avoiding talking about religion, politics, emotions, our bodies, relationships, gender-related issues —all of this resulted in confusion, lack of knowledge and being easily swayed by various opinions (unless you’re, thank god, self-enlightened and seeking deep research).

This strategy proved its failure, nowadays, because we’re highly exposed to the world and all the taboos are unveiled, so we are naturally forced to learn how to keep up a civilized conversation about something we are not accustomed to discuss. We can’t keep ignoring such topics because they’re popping up everywhere and the ‘hiding method’ is no longer effective, it simply died out.

The sudden exposure to danger zones we usually avoided is indeed difficult and uncomfortable, but it’s a must. The process of learning about the vast variety upon which our world is built is actually something fun and joyous —you’ll feel enriched and watered, you’ll feel that there is a plethora of things to discover, you’ll realize that the world isn’t simply your world.

However, we're lucky to witness the new age of (bold?) education; we are no longer ashamed or awkward when it comes to tackling the taboos, and this courage is getting built through baby steps —but it's here. This tells us that the future will be even more rebellious, even more innovative, even more accepting and even more understanding.