A reality we can dine for

Culture

“My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind.”

― Tahir Shah, In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams

How does the world dine-in culture?

“One bird is all it will take.” -The Eye of The World, Robert Jordan

Culture reflects the world in all aspects. Not just human aspects. Of course, humanity has given the reason for ownership over the word because we can talk and no other animals can. However, the formation of culture is imperative to every living creature.

When humans gave culture a word they only applied it to themselves forgetting that animals create their own system of culture as well.

According to the Webster dictionary, humans have determined the term culture means ”the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social groups.” But this definition is a relative term to the selfishness that man has made himself. For instance, dogs are easily trainable and tend to learn how to co-exist with humans. While dogs are tameable creatures they do have their own set of cultural differences that are adapted among the behavior of its owner.

While the more primitive dogs or wolves have their own set of a hierarchy system that forms its own cultural lingo. Wolves create a distinguished community by marking who the alphas ( leaders are), betas ( second in commands), hunters, Scouters, and the low of the low including the famous lone wolf. They distinguish one from the other through behavioral techniques that include vocalization, change of tail angle, and biting. By establishing these terms, most packs can create their own territory and community which is similar to how we as humans establish a culture.

We are shaped by the environment we are raised in which determines who, how, and what we go on to do in our lives.

After realizing all of this, I came to the conclusion that humans resulted in a hierarchy as a way to dominate one another, and create structure between each other. The rich have their own lavish culture, and the poor have their own culture. In between the two, there are the median income drivers who have a taste of what both cultures offer. This stands true for all countries around the world. Then, each country has its own set of rules, cultural linguistics, and fashion.

“All knowledge hurts.” -Cassandra Clare, City of Bones.

What do I perceive the Medium.com culture to be

While determining how and why humans use culture, I decided to look at how Medium has become the platform that it is today. While I use Medium as a space to flesh out my own thoughts and desires while others use it as a space to earn money, and reputation. Do be aware that there are spammers on Medium too. By spammers, I mean articles that are meant to be aimed at selling with repetitive words. We are all aiming to sell something here, but we do it with our own style, and approach.

Medium has it’s own definitive culture that is angled around curating articles, circulating publications, and keeping a reader base. Culture can mean a lot to a lot of people but during the duration of this post let’s keep it relative to our writing community. I want to focus on what it means to me to be part of a writing community and begin to establish who I am as a person in a world that is chaotically changing for me.

A blogging community like this one is a place where we as writers can share articles for others to read. Plain and simple in design. Naturally, our online community formed and with it came a new culture like the way small ones that neighborhoods developed their own.

When I first discovered this platform, I was on my way to being a lost blogger with an actual website. My website was difficult to manage and I could not handle the style that my blog was becoming. In a quest to find a new home, I looked up free blogging platforms. Turned out that Medium was the third site on that list.

My experience with this community began a few years back as I wrote posts and struggled to find a tribe as they say. I was a newborn pup in a field that I could not and did not understand. It was a new culture for me. An online culture that I have never experienced before. But I’m glad to be here now. The journey to get here has been worth it.

With all of the writers on this site, we are currently committed to bringing the blogging platform to a place that can inspire, and help each other achieve our dreams of writing. Topics are how they separate our work, and curate articles based on the reader’s interest. By allowing this, writers can set a target topic and have a spot for their article to be picked among millions of other writers.

This forms the basic culture of Medium. A place to share.

“You were born an original work of art. Stay original.”

― Suzy Kassem

Bushes don’t bleed, do they? Or scream, and look in your eyes and ask, why?

Publications and what they do for us

Publications are similar to how our magazines in the real world work. We write articles with the intention of being seen by curating our work to topics. However, we have an added bonus. The development of publications. There are plenty of publications to choose from who all have their own set of rules, ideas, and articles.

For me the most common publications that I read currently are:

Illumination

The Writing Cooperative

Mind Cafe

So far, these are the three big ones that I often gallantly read during the day. I think publications like these catapult our publications into the formation of small tribes which can create a feeling of unity, comradery, community, and a functioning society.

With that said, I think we can all dine on the type of culture that we are creating here on Medium. A culture that does not stain one another, or form hostility towards one another. We want to spread love and information with the world today. This is what we will do.

I am a writer on Illumination and it encourages us to share and involve ourselves with establishing a friendly culture. It is a new publication and I believe we can make it a home for us by making sure we are there for one another. Let’s shine together with a culture we can dine on.