Excerpt: Handshakes

So then what are your thoughts on religion?

You know, more often than not I feel like religion is a necessary custom. Call it whatever you want and practice it however you want, we all search at times for that moment when we are in touch with the universe. What does that mean? For that moment when we are not merely a part of it, but communicating directly with its fabric. Science is a religion in this sense as well.

So what does this mean as it relates to our world? Well, on the one hand, I see religion to be a universal handshake. I gesture from man to man, a sort of greeting. Where one person communicates to another person, within his mosque or temple, I too believe. I too wish to connect with the universe, in much the same way you do. Let us discuss all that God has told us. Religion has that same feeling as when you meet someone for the first time and shake hands; an agreement that you believe there is a higher order that governs us. I could just as well have met this man with a shove, a denial of the way we are supposed to treat our fellow neighbour at first contact, but I didn't. For I believe in the Father and will shake my brother's hand as I wish he will do unto me. We need handshakes, they help us come together.

On the other hand, sometimes religion to me seems a lot like a handshake. Time for a story: Perhaps I was 7 or 8 years old. I used to go over to my cousin's house on weekends, play nintendo until the headaches happened, sleep over and then go home the next morning. One weekend, my Uncle took us over to work with him, I forget why. All I could remember was that this would be my first time anywhere near a data center. Uncle introduced me to one of his employees, an IT manager or analyst. After Uncle put both of our names out in the open, a nervous man reached down to an extremely nervous boy extending his hand. I, the nervous boy, filled with a desire to introduce myself with every fibre of my being extended my hand, my left hand. As the tips of my left fingers met the tips of his right fingers, we both felt the need to switch; my need a result of embarrassment, his a result of empathy. As the tips of my right fingers met the tips of his left, we realized this gesture had now transcended formality and spilled into hilarity. What happened next stuck with me for the rest of my life. The IT manager said to me with a comforting introspection, 'You know, it's funny this has happened because I too am naturally left-handed, it must have been about 30 years now since I last shook somebody's left hand. I always thought it was a matter of respect to extend your best hand to someone whom you have just met, but over the years working with countless people, you just learn to give in and shake with your right hand only. Since we're two southpaws, why don't we just this one time shake with our lefts?' I never actually told him I was left-handed, it's maybe worth mentioning. I also never told him that he would know me with a greater depth in 1 conversation than some others will know me throughout my life.

I feel like the other half of my perspective on religion was summarized in that introduction. Religion sometimes is like a handshake, it divides man. It forces man to make a choice to follow a certain rigid custom. Not because that meaning behind that custom cannot be expressed in other ways, but merely because we are scared. Scared that if the rest of the world doesn't shake hands the way we shake hands, there will be anarchy. Anarchy, is what most religions proclaim. A world of suffering, others proclaim. A world where left hands disagree with right hands, and nobody knows what's right anymore. So we have a select few decide for us how to go about greeting our fellow man. Smiles for the man who shakes with his right; guilt, fear, dishonour, pretentious warning, even so far as death for the man who doesn't. It need not matter if he too only wished to extend his hand and introduce every fiber of his being. We get so obsessed with the custom, that the gesture behind it is lost in our anger, and in our lack of desire to simply communicate.

Personally, I was born left-handed and fortunate enough that my parents didn't beat this out of me (as was typical in their day and age). Personally, I was born philosophical and fortunate enough that my parents didn't beat this out of me (as was typical in their day and age). My parents were always more concerned that I would continue to extend my hand forward, even when they weren't there to watch, that's all that mattered. The world can try to beat me into right-handed submission: That the only way to the Father is through the church, that Allah alone speaks the truth, that heaven and earth are supported through the Dao, that there is no God, that causality alone is the comprehensive description of existence... The anarchy of the many right-handed who have created such a mess out of a seemingly flawless system of elimination. Deny all other approaches and perhaps everyone will shake in the same way, and that will cause human harmony: Centuries later, individuality survives. I shake a right hand with the best of them, I'm open to any religious text or teacher given the time to respect the accompanying lessons, I mean this wholly. But I'm naturally left-handed: I'm more concerned with the philosophy. I'm more concerned that a man's handshake is an expression of introducing himself with every fibre of his being. Where there is conflict in belief, I meet that with a laugh and a smile about how funny it is, this game of shaking hands.

What's more, I come from a culture and neighbourhood where handshakes and greetings can become very elaborate. There are many ways to say hello and goodbye with your hands where I come from. In my life, I expose myself to them all. Isn't that the point, to find new ways of extending your hand, until the very end?