Robert Burton
Bio
A world traveler and student of life, people and the human mind. I've been molded by my origins in The American South, six years of life in The People's Republic of China and my passion for life. I live, I learn and then I write about it.
Stories (19/0)
Planting People
This is about people, planting people. Growing plants turns out to be a lot like raising human beings, because in many ways they need the same things and have nuanced requirements. If these needs aren’t met the final product is affected immensely. Therefore, the fruit that is born of the tree is directly influenced by the circumstances present in the nascent period of its life. In layman’s terms, this applies to human beings in such a way as to imply that the mental, emotional and spiritual health of an adult human is directly impacted by the childhood and relationship with the caretakers. This overall health, or lack thereof, is then a direct influence of how said adult takes care of the next generation when they are a caretaker. So, the process repeats itself and the effects, if not healed become generational. A forest is full of trees, and the health of the forest is dependent upon the health and plentitude of factors such as soil, sun and water in a way where every tree can stand as an individual, but what effects one tree can affect the whole forest. So, you have this collective called a forest and individuals called trees, yet the whole and the sum parts are connected, the health of the trees becomes the health of the forest. I think you could say the same about a farm and its separate seeds and plants. I like to further this analogy to humanity and its societies, families and individuals. That’s why I’ve named this piece “Planting People.”
By Robert Burtonabout a year ago in Families
How Travel Transformed me
Looking back on it, it was much like a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, but I was living it and my personal evolution wasn’t televised. I was a teenager of about 17, who hadn’t really been anywhere, much less to the other side of the world. What did I know about traveling, or traveling to Asia for that matter? So, there I was in my small southern town of origin—Richmond, Virginia—which is a small, easy half-horse town where things change slowly and slow down fast. If you’re from a larger city such as New York or London, coming to Richmond will feel like being dropped in a jar of molasses. But I digress.
By Robert Burtonabout a year ago in Humans
The Economics of Dating
In America, dating is an extremely important thing. Love and the transcendent feeling it can give individuals is big business in the Western world and is one of the only means by which Western man has to garner an ephemeral feeling, a sense of breaking through the mundanity of one’s banal life. Western man doesn’t go and find bliss at the feet of some deity, that’s not our style, instead Westerners, or more particularly, Americans find their sense of solace in companionship and in romantic love. I personally believe that all love is self-love, and subsequently all hate is self-hate, this being that westerners project onto another and look for in another that which we wish to celebrate and nourish in ourselves. So, Americans’ sense of transcendental bliss and happiness comes from romantic relationships.
By Robert Burton2 years ago in Humans
Miseducation of the Westerner
As a history buff and avid student of humanity’s procession towards our present moment, I have come to the conclusion, the sudden realization, that the way we’ve been going about teaching the subject of History is all wrong. To be very specific, I’m speaking as a Westerner and to the Western world. As an American, I am a member of what we call “Western Civilization”, which consists of a group of highly industrialized countries that are clustered around the Northern part of the Atlantic Ocean. These countries are the wealthiest, most infrastructurally developed, most economically developed and tend to work together militarily. I’m speaking of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and others. Together, these countries, which tend to be seen as the powerhouses of the globe, the monied countries and are known as the Great Eight are arbitrarily called “The West.” These countries aren’t really west of anything, since we live on a globe, they simply are farther west than what has been traditionally called the “old world.” Since The West has more international influence, maps of the globe tend to be made by them and with them in mind so they tend to geometrically center Europe on those maps because of historical perspective, these countries are seen as west of the “old world.” Yet, much of what is previously stated is the crux of my issue. The Western world, also called Euro-America, tends to be centered in everything and is seen as the main focal point of all historical, economic and cultural analyses. This has done westerners a huge disservice by rendering us extremely ignorant of the rest of the world and its cultures which causes us to implement our bias in our global institutions. We tend to see ourselves as “The West” which is the best and our presence and way of life blesses the rest, who tend to be browner and poorer. This bias is a product of an education system that renders us so ignorant of other people’s histories and cultures that we often assume that they don’t have any. Thus, this essay is a critique of how we teach History in schools and on the collegiate level. How we have studied and taught this history in our educational systems has imbued many westerners with a shallow sense of humanity that makes it difficult for them to connect and empathize with humans of different hues and from foreign cultures due to a lack of understanding, knowledge of and appreciation for those different cultures.
By Robert Burton2 years ago in Education
The Root of the Issue
It is said in almost every civilization that the family is the basic building block of the community, the society, the kingdom and nation. Therefore, everything starts in the home. The health of the home is directly contributing to the health of the broader society at large, being that families produce individuals, which are the most basic units of humanity. As each individual is born and grows, their individual health, attitudes about life, their beliefs and expectations of life all of coalesce into a collective bundle of cultural norms and ideas that directly influences societal health, attitudes and beliefs. Using this logic, one can surmise that unhealthy families create unhealthy individuals who coalesce into an unhealthy, greater society. If I could draw a parallel in nature—the nation, society and community are much like a forest, which essentially, is a collection of individual entities, albeit of different species and existing as individuals, but do so together as a collective. These forests, these massive communities of trees and other forms of vegetation all begin with tiny, individual seeds and are nurtured by their environments—the dirt in which seeds are planted. I have learned to see human beings in the same respect. As we are socially organized, our collective health is dependent upon how healthy each individual is and this health, or lack thereof, is hugely influenced by the environment in which the individual was raised in. Trees start with a seed; humans start with an egg. This egg, at first, is nurtured within the womb, which, like nature, nourishes nascent humans, who are totally immersed in the environment which is its mother. The health or emotional and psychological state that the mother is in is inherited by the sentient being that emerges from the egg. Thus, if any malfeasance occurs or manifests within the adult personality and psyche, then the root of the issue is most likely the parental style which raised that individual or the formative environment or people who were responsible for rearing the young individual. Logically, the process of healing must start there. Many ancient societies required their want-to-be members of the community to go through some sort of birthing ceremony where they must climb back into the womb, reconcile what was or what should have been and then be re-born again, reemerging from this symbolic womb, healthier, healed and endowed with a better sense of purpose.
By Robert Burton2 years ago in Families
Lessons of the Breath
After years of intense meditation complimented by austere yogic practices, the Buddha left his dwelling place in the forest, met a girl down by the river who offered him a bowl of rice, ate it, found a tree, sat under it and began to meditate. This meditation session would become the most renowned in world history, for it initiated the process by which The Buddha reached enlightenment. The method by which he did this was simple—he focused his mind on his breath.
By Robert Burton3 years ago in Longevity
House on the Hill
There was a house built high up on a hill. This house was fashioned to be a shining beacon of freedom and a mansion for every man. Those that built this house reaped the resources around them by cutting down the trees, sawing the wood, laying down the foundation and positioning the corner stone perfectly. The architects truly had a master plan in mind when they erected this edifice. They carved and cut out the windows and furnished the house with the finest furniture making it a place of comfort and protection from the elements. Once the builders and the architects finished, they looked upon it and said “this truly is a fine house, spacious and comfortable with many rooms and enough beds for everyone and for all whom built it. Every hand that laid bricks for this house should have a say in how it is furnished and should have a room in it, a bed and should be able to eat from its kitchen—all who worked shall eat.” Upon hearing this, the architects and the builders all agreed and immediately began preparations to move into this new mansion built by the many. But, while some were making their preparations, others looked inside the house, looked at its many rooms and though it were a spacious house, abundant in every way, inside of these men was nothing but a spirit of lack. That lack, they projected onto the house and its rooms. “If Everyone gets a room, the less rooms we get” they said to themselves. “Why should we share with them, when we can have more?” they thought to themselves. Suddenly, the abundance of rooms appeared to them as not enough, the space suddenly shrank before their eyes and the hallways didn’t seem as long. So, the architects dichotomized the builders into groups: their group and the other group, the superior and the inferior, the worthy and the unworthy, the old and the young, the citizen and the foreigner, the majority and the minority.
By Robert Burton3 years ago in The Swamp
A House On The Hill
There was a house built high up on a hill. This house was fashioned to be a shining beacon of freedom and a mansion for every man. Those that built this house reaped the resources around them by cutting down the trees, sawing the wood, laying down the foundation and positioning the corner stone perfectly. The architects truly had a master plan in mind when they erected this edifice. They carved and cut out the windows and furnished the house with the finest furniture making it a place of comfort and protection from the elements. Once the builders and the architects finished, they looked upon it and said “this truly is a fine house, spacious and comfortable with many rooms and enough beds for everyone and for all whom built it. Every hand that laid bricks for this house should have a say in how it is furnished and should have a room in it, a bed and should be able to eat from its kitchen—all who worked shall eat.” Upon hearing this, the architects and the builders all agreed and immediately began preparations to move into this new mansion built by the many. But, while some were making their preparations, others looked inside the house, looked at its many rooms and though it were a spacious house, abundant in every way, inside of these men was nothing but a spirit of lack. That lack, they projected onto the house and its rooms. “If Everyone gets a room, the less rooms we get” they said to themselves. “Why should we share with them, when we can have more?” they thought to themselves. Suddenly, the abundance of rooms appeared to them as not enough, the space suddenly shrank before their eyes and the hallways didn’t seem as long. So, the architects dichotomized the builders into groups: their group and the other group, the superior and the inferior, the worthy and the unworthy, the old and the young, the citizen and the foreigner, the majority and the minority.
By Robert Burton3 years ago in Humans
Through the Eyes of the Educator
Allow me to first preface and contextualize what I want to say. Truth without love isn’t truth. It is simply bludgeoning people with facts. I am an African-American educator who has educated minds on both sides of the world. This educator loves the people in his community and comes from a place of love and understanding, an because I come from a place of love, I must tenderly tell you the truth. The last leg of my educational career has been in the lower-income sociological environment that we politely call the inner city. With that said, allow me to get to my point. As an educator, I spend more time during the weekday with people’s children than they do. As an educator, I see the effects of parents’ aptitude and relationship with their children. They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and in my experience, it takes a considerable amount of force to blow that apple from the periphery of the tree which bore it. My aim is never to judge but one can always judge a tree by its fruit. I fear to tell the truth because I know that it is fruitless and disrespectful to tell anyone how to raise their child—but I’m afraid we aren’t doing right by these kids.
By Robert Burton3 years ago in Education
The Return
There was a time when I hadn’t been home in something like 3-4 years. I was truly the sojourn traveler, the hopeless victim of wanderlust. Around the 4th or 5th year of my expat life, people started to look at me with that look of awe and wonder, as if I were some sort of superman when I told them how long I had been gone. “You’ve been in China that long!”, they’d say. It all seemed perfectly normal to me, being the traveler’s life has always been a part of my personality and moving abroad and staying away for so long was simply a natural progression for me.
By Robert Burton3 years ago in Families
The Gift that Kept on Brewing
It appears that humans have always had a predilection for drinking beer. It has always been considered a divine, intoxicating substance that was imbibed for reasons stretching from medicinal usages to sheer recreation. No one area of the world or Ancient civilization can boast to have invented the substance, yet where ever one found agricultural practices that involved grain production, there would have been the ability to discover the process required ferment beer. Ancient beer didn’t use hops but instead was probably a product of grains fermenting overtime and then being exposed to natural yeasts in the air. In fact, one interesting factoid to consider is that the first brewers, particularly in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, are thought to have been women. What societal phenomena led to brewing becoming a female-dominated area are unknown. However, as time moved forward, Medieval European monasteries began brewing their own beer for mass consumption and created the Western style of artisanal beers. The Monks, who tweaked the process, undoubtedly were males and their expertise was passed on to exclusively men. From here, there was a massive proliferation of new styles and methods being invented, influencing the cultures of various European countries. Next comes the Industrial Revolution, improving techniques and bringing better machinery, while allowing for mass production and thus, more commercial consumption. Throughout this long history, beer became better, more liquidous—less like the gruel-like substance of the ancient world, and more importantly, a more male-dominated industry. The Prohibition Movement of the American U.S, wiped out the legal beer market in America. Upon its repeal, a watered-down, more regulated, prohibitionist pilsner emerged opening the way for Budweiser, Coors and Miller.
By Robert Burton3 years ago in FYI
The Gift that Kept on Brewing
It appears that humans have always had a predilection for drinking beer. It has always been considered a divine, intoxicating substance that was imbibed for reasons stretching from medicinal usages to sheer recreation. No one area of the world or Ancient civilization can boast to have invented the substance, yet where ever one found agricultural practices that involved grain production, there would have been the ability to discover the process required ferment beer. Ancient beer didn’t use hops but instead was probably a product of grains fermenting overtime and then being exposed to natural yeasts in the air. In fact, one interesting factoid to consider is that the first brewers, particularly in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, are thought to have been women. What societal phenomena led to brewing becoming a female-dominated area are unknown. However, as time moved forward, Medieval European monasteries began brewing their own beer for mass consumption and created the Western style of artisanal beers. The Monks, who tweaked the process, undoubtedly were males and their expertise was passed on to exclusively men. From here, there was a massive proliferation of new styles and methods being invented, influencing the cultures of various European countries. Next comes the Industrial Revolution, improving techniques and bringing better machinery, while allowing for mass production and thus, more commercial consumption. Throughout this long history, beer became better, more liquidous—less like the gruel-like substance of the ancient world, and more importantly, a more male-dominated industry. The Prohibition Movement of the American U.S, wiped out the legal beer market in America. Upon its repeal, a watered-down, more regulated, prohibitionist pilsner emerged opening the way for Budweiser, Coors and Miller.
By Robert Burton3 years ago in Proof