Blog 2: Personal folklore and worldview

How is your personal folklore an expression of your worldview?

Reading Toelken's eye-opening article definitely impressed me when I learned how folklore and tradition help form our perceptions and cultural worldview. According to the article, even the physical shape(s) of the environment we primarily live in will in turn "shape" our perceptions about how the world should be. For example, the Western American world is a world of lines, corners, squares, rectangles, etc. These shapes suggest to us an orderly world dictated by a linear timeline that has a beginning and an ending. But this is just one version of reality for one culture. Toelken then contrasts this perception of "reality" with the Navajos, who see a "circular" environment that is in harmony with the family, the community, and nature.

Of course, no one is destined to live in a certain shaped reality forever. While for the most part, I still see the same as I used to when I was younger, I feel more open to accepting another person's perspective than before. I grew up in a small family that was religious, but worldly and encouraged curiosity about the world and people around us. All the schools I've ever attended were filled with kids from diverse backgrounds, and I could not imagine living in an area with only one "type" of community or folkgroup. It was by no means perfect or grand -- wherever there is diversity, there seems to be prejudice, which is passed around within the folkgroups against others, as though we were all in some kind of competition to prove which one was the best. That still happens now, but I'm more aware and sensitive to it so that I don't depend solely on my own mind set.