TEDxDubai - Loy Machedo - Stone of judgement

How we judge others, when fear and prejudice takes over hearts & souls.

How many kids are there

in this room?

Could I see your hands?

I would dedicate this presentation

to every child in this room,

including the child in you,

and the children around the world.

So I want you to pay attention

to this person standing here

What does it mean to be different?

To find the answer to this really profound question,

I decided to ask the guru

of all gurus,

Google.com

I googled the question

and voila! I got the answer.

However, there was a problem

because I got somewhere around

410,786,434 pages only.

So, since we have less time

I will compress it into one single sentence

like my figure.

And this is what I got.

When you have CBL:

two or more cultures, beliefs, lifestyles,

or when you have VOP:

views, opinions, perceptions,

that is when you have difference.

Now, if you look at me

I have a few tatoos on my body,

just one extended, one really large.

Now, you might think I'm different from you,

but I'm just like you.

I eat, I sleep, I laugh, I cry.

How many of you do that?

Mashallah, we are the same.

I also have this hobby of reading books,

writing articles and being on Facebook.

How many of you do that?

Mashallah, we are the same.

And guess what, I have a few dreams.

I would like to have long hair,

although it doesn't seem to be working.

I'd like to touch the lives of many people.

And when I die, I want to die fast.

How many of you would like that?

Okay, a few less hands.

But when people look at me,

this is the expression they give.

(Laughter)

It's like, I'm walking to the grocery

and totally --

I mean, I'm like,

"Whoa, relax, chill dude."

And people have baptized me

with those wonderful names.

Let me give you a few:

smoker, drinker, even a drug adict,

guy who drives a Harley,

gangster, a wrestler,

undertaker's brother and a heavy metal freak.

Yeah.

And the latest one to top the chart,

I've got this one:

(Roars)

You should see people

when they come into the lift and see me.

Oh, my!

Now, to your bad news,

I don't smoke, I don't drink,

I don't drive a Harley,

instead I love playing with kids.

I love children and children love to play with me.

But you should see the parents

when they see me

with their kids.

They go like,

"Uh, let's take him."

Hey, what's the difference?

What is the difference?

I'm a speaker, writer,

I'm a person who loves to read books.

I'm just like you.

Forget me.

How many other people do we judge,

even before we know them?

Have you ever thought about it?

The funny thing is

because all this experiences

I've come up with this new theory

that it hurts.

It hurts when you judge other people.

It hurts when you deprive someone

of their dreams,

of their goals,

of even a promotion,

because you categorize them into different boxes.

And it hurts

when you teach your children

something that is not true.

Because of the experiences in my life

I came up with this new theory

and by the way, it's copyright.

I call it The Loy's Theory of Eggs.

As for this profound theory,

we human beings are like eggs.

Different shapes, sizes and colors.

Some of them are really very big,

some medium, some really very small.

But my theory states:

All of us eggs are equal.

Give a round of applause.

(Applause)

Thank you.

No, my presentation is not over.

One of them just got up, relax.

So as I was saying,

we all eggs are equal.

If you want proof, do this.

Break an egg.

What do you get?

The same stuff inside.

But you get some people here

who categorize human beings

like they categorize eggs,

region or country.

You get them dividing people like

good quality, bad quality.

By one, get two free.

What's wrong with people?

But try doing this.

Give this small child a dozen eggs,

different colors.

For that child an egg is just an egg.

And nothing was made more evident to me

than the time when I was at the airport

waiting for my flight, daydreaming,

thinking of those romantic thoughts.

And then it happened.

Someting started scratcing my hand.

I looked down and I saw this.

A small baby girl apparently thought

I was a walking-coloring book

(Laughter)

(Applause)

and she actually started coloring me up.

Now, I decided to show her the angry look.

And I showed her --

She gave me her look.

And then I was like, I have to tell her.

"Oh, it's okay, relax.

How about coloring this?"

And she was very happy.

She started going higher and higher.

And before I knew it

two of her friends came running by

and all three started coloring me up.

Now picture this,

a big tatooed guy and three babies

coloring him up.

In fact, a lot of people got

a lot of photographs of it for free.

But they didn't judge me.

The thing about children is

for them, everything is like

a sense of curiosity and wonder.

They never, ever judge anyone.

Have you ever tried giving a child a book?

The child will open the pages,

try to read the book.

If not possible, eat it.

But a child never judges a book by its cover.

I really wonder:

Why do we grown-ups lose that sense of mischief?

In fact during the break --

Is Ali in the house? Ali, where are you?

Is Ali somewhere here?

Okay, there are a couple of Alis.

Ali asked me this beautiful question.

And I admire his courage for it.

He said, "Hey dude,

when you start looking like this,

how would you not expect someone to judge you?"

I mean how much of media does it take

for us to change opinions

or form opinions about other people?

Try doing this.

Take a group of children,

put them here.

From different cultures, communities, religions.

Put them here.

And do the same with adults.

You'd see a difference here,

and you'd see a difference here.

The reason is

because someone out there is giving you information

which is not true.

And for us, we are comfortable

to hide within our comfort zone

and judge others.

I believe that every human being here

is equal.

I believe that

when you categorize people through their CBL,

cultures, beliefs, lifestyles,

or even VOPs,

views, opinions or perceptions

you are comitting a sin.

Including when you judge someone with tatoos.

My dear friends, this is just color.

When I die, I'm going six feet underground

and most of you are gonna join me.

So why the differentiation

between me or anyone else.

So that is where I would conclude.

As I conclude, this is the message I give to all of you:

We are all born different,

to different fathers and mothers

but we are all the same.

We are all sisters, we are brothers.

We all have a pair of limbs,

eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

We all look the same.

Be from far East, the West, North or South.

When we are all the same,

why do we hate, fight and cry.

Instead, let's pray for one another

under this vast beautiful blue sky.

Every waking day, bless each and everyone,

by the cool summer breeze or the warmth of the sun.

Look at each and everyone

through the eyes of a child.

Hold each other close

through prayers, powerful, yet mild.

Take those baby steps like walking.

And do this one small thing.

No more wars will be fought.

Songs of victory we will sing.

Let's become like little children,

this is the message that I bring.

For this child here, you all,

every person here,

every child in the world

is truly

the beauty of small things.

(Applause)