Asthmatic Thoughts

I dread the -ber months. It is the official start of the Christmas season here in the Philippines and it's also the start of the change in the climate. It's the end of the rainy season and the shift from the wet southwest monsoon wind to the cold bearing wind of the north east monsoon that wrecks havoc to my (or many asthmatics) system. I don't know the reason why and I don't want to find out becuase its beyond my control.

So I am absent from work which left me with nothing to do but decompress and allow my body to recover. I try to avoid medications as much as possible because of the side effects with which hand tremors  from the ventulins being the worst. It's disconcerting to see a part of your body out of your control. I mean, I imagine the trembling hands grabbing my neck, strangling me and gauging my eyes out.

Who wants to get sick anyway because given the choice everybody would schedule their sickness to a date where it would be convenient to everybody. Another thing is the inconvenience an absent teacher brings to the whole team. Your work load is distributed to your fellow teachers free time.  We deal with children and a lot could go wrong, accidents, fist fights and it's not unusual to report to work the next day with a parent or two waiting for you at the hallway to report an incident of bullying. 

A few years ago I had the experience of dealing with a stabbing incident. It was an accident but it was hard to make parents realize that when they saw their children bleeding in the hand. The thing with parents is that their children have already forgiven and forgotten yet they are still angry. 

Another was when a scissor was plugged into a socket which the pupil thought was not connected to the power source resulting to the black out of the classroom. It was fortunate that the switch was not connected to the entire building else I would have got the ire of many teachers. I had to buy fuses to replace the busted ones.

The teachers job is difficult. I mean aside from teaching, academic development, records management, community relations, etc. they also carry some of the burden of their pupils. They are affected by their pupils difficult conditions. Even the toughest teacher would not be affected upon seeing a pupil head down while others are eating their lunch because of lack of money, or a pupil with bruises from beating, or a bully who came from a broken family. 

What makes teaching children a more difficult job? It's when the teacher's parental instinct kicks in. 

    

All Apologies and love...

(I'm not feeling well. The sudden shift in the weather or climate, I should say, affects my body in nefarious ways: clogged upper respiratory system, headaches and, omens of, God forbids, an asthma episode.)

I arrived in the school earlier a few minutes earlier today. I took the time to read some of my pupils' letters which I have asked them to write last week. I was reading them and I have noticed that their letters have two things in common: love and apologies.

These themes are also present in their messages posted on the teacher's day message wall. What impressed me was the expressiveness, the way they write those words directly to their teachers. I wondered if they were as expressive to their parents as they were to their teachers. 

I took a few minutes to think about it and to ask why all apologies. I guess its because the children are bombarded with rules. school rules, classroom rules, etc, and to their minds any infraction of a rule is an offense to the teacher because I cannot imagine a child offending a teacher, I mean not in the way adult offends one another. 

I have a soft spot for my pupils even though I get angry at them and shout at them but at the end of the day, I cannot help but tell them I'm sorry and that my words are triggered by my high blood pressure. But words hurt even at least for me, there are times when I thought I have been too rough to a pupil that it gives me troubled sleep and I have to seek that pupil out first thing in the morning to apologize but of course children are wonderful people they forget easily. 

I think it was the philosopher Nietzsche who said that if we do not forget, we go crazy and children are good at that. I mean, its not that we beat the hell out of them, but we do use words sharply, but they move on much faster. I still get visits from former pupils who laughs at their experiences from the jokes to the shouts. Of course, I cannot say that all of them have forgiving hearts, some might have kept a grudge or more.

As I was reading the letters, I could not help but smile at the pledges of everlasting friendship. I hope that they do keep their promises. Childhood friends are the best ones for they have shared the earliest phase of their lives.

Children become adult and once they have realized how powerful these two words are: love and apology, they become selfish with them, they give them sparingly or wrongly.

  

Adult not only loses their childhood imagination, to a degree they also lose their childlike ability to empathize.

Teacher's day and the straw that broke the camels back

When the activities for this year's Teacher's Day were presented to us by our grade leader, my initial reaction was, what's going on? I thought it was a bad joke?  Well, I was hoping it was. Of course, I knew beforehand.

The idea that I would be performing "Spaghetti Pataas" remixed with anthemic 90's dance hit "Always" was blasphemous, traumatic even. Heck, I am not thinking of my personal dignity, but I am more concerned with the mental health of the audience. Anyway, I know the program meant well and one of its objectives was to showcase the teachers talent. But me dancing? Impossible....err...get me drunk first.

Speaking for my group, when each individual was asked what they wanted for Teacher's Day, the answers were as varied as the number of the members. One wanted a movie pass, another a lunch out, facial and beauty stuff, rest day, a date with a virgin err..I mean beer and gin, etc. I mean. it's our day, its like a birthday and there's the idea, no matter how illusory it was, that it was our day. But it was disconcerting when it was learned that the special day would become a fund raising day.

Personally, the idea was sacrilegious.

I think with the stress and work and the activities and programs and visitors and the children and the parents and the gamuts and gamuts of stuffs of everyday grind only to be told that a fund raising was at hand and that all teachers will perform, no exception as it was communicated to us, was the straw that broke the camel's back that prompted the teacher's club to seek a dialog with the school head. The dialog resulted to the clarifications of the misconceptions of the intentions for the occasion in the institution.  (Sapatos ni Syon) 

I am not privy to the conversation and as much as possible I try to stay away from school politics. I don't want to be a head ache to the school head and I am one of those employees who keep their head down,  report to work on time, go home on time. Invisibility is the survival mechanism I have adapted. 

But I was invited to a meeting and I have heard our school head's  side verbatim and the clarifications on class observation and her decision to stop the fund raising.  

Of course, it did not end there. the teachers consensus was to continue with the program. But I am not going to dance, I am willing to sweep the gym's floor to make up for dancing, it's very kind of our school head not to take my bet and simply smiled at me and said she will not ask me to do such thing.

It's tough to be a school head because the principal is the embodiment of the system that the teachers abhor so they are the ones who gets the flak from frustrations, stress, even the ire of the parents. Aside from the administrative jobs, they have to please the minor gods and the muses from the higher ups. I mean...they add to the stress.

I can't even put myself in their shoes because the complexity of the task add the thought of dealing with teachers who unlike pupils can fight back cowers me. The complexity of the task would kill me the first day.

Resentments build up due to stress, financial problems. personal problems, but in the end I believe that all of us are good people its just that we are all put under a lot of pressure that sometimes overwhelm us and turn us into something we don't want to be.

This event was bound to happen, its just a matter of time. It's a good thing it happened this early because the pressure has been released because below the straw that broke the camel's back are heavier and deeper stuffs that are pushing up and needs to be addressed with, and to which I say Caveat.

Reflection and refraction on yesterday's lesson

The flag ceremony was done.

ESP was over.

English time.

Sat down and thought for a while.

Checked my curriculum guide and saw that its writing time. Read the objectives in random and here are some of them in no particular order:

• Compose clear and coherent sentences using appropriate grammatical structures: -Subject-verb agreement
• Write a 4- paragraph composition showing -comparison and contrast 
• correct spelling - appropriate punctuation marks -transition/ signal words

Hmmm...I said to myself. What about these objectives? Put down the curriculum guide on the table and stared at the ceiling, nah, too fancy.

Looks at the rubrics with its categories/criteria and score. I prevented myself from throwing them out the windows because even I as a teacher, once presented with the categories and the numbers would be thinking about them rather what I want to write or say something about. To tell the truth some teachers, like me, would not even be able to meet these criteria.

So...

I stood in front of the class, asked them to get a whole sheet of paper and write a letter to their friends. 

Some pupils espoecially the girls were excited but many were hesitant and even protested loudly, much too loudl should I say, that they didn't know how to write or speak in English.

I started a monologue: "Dear children Filipinos are good with English. When an American goes to China and asks a Chinese where they could find a taxi, guess what? The common Chinese folk could not understand a single word and that foreigner would have to communicate using their hands, they have to act every word of it out. 

Here in the Philippines when an american asked anyone, even you, where to find a taxi, you can understand, you can reply in English. I mean you can say "over there, go to the left, etc." So, You are all good with English."

Ok! Start writing!

"Sir with margin?" 

"Sir can I write six letters?"

"Sir, what's the English for this or that?"

"Just write!"

"Sir, should we be writing to our friends here in the classroom or outside the classroom?"

"Write to any friend you like, in the classroom, outside  the classroom, imaginary, real, any friends..."

"Sir how many sentences?"

"What should write about?"

"Anything"

"Just write!"

After five minutes many are already passing their papers...

Write more, write the first thing that comes into your mind.

I was looking at them and was happy to see that some of them were smiling while writing (so, you are writing to your crush?), some were looking up to the ceiling conjuring up English words (me looking up at the ceiling and asking them what they see above) to translate what they wanted to say, some just gave up and started doodling on their paper after writing a few sentences.

So, finally after an hour, I told them to pass their papers.

I read their works (not checked or graded them) and was happy at the numbers of sentences  they have written, some even wrote multiple letters to many friends. I read some sample to the class, joked about who they were writing to. 

Did I grade their papers? Did I rank their outputs? Hell, no!

No, just told them it was all very good and they should enjoy writing whatever it is that comes into their heads no matter how incoherent and random the ideas.

When rules are imposed first, it distracts the writer and the creativity will be replaced by rigid conformity that would hamper their writing this early in their lives. 

Writing is learned by writing. Its similar to music, lots of people are lead to music theory because they can already sing or play music and musical terms are necessary to communicate, but very few, if any at all, were led to music by studying music theories first. So, encourage them to write, doodle first, unthinking of rules of grammar, accuracy of words, it could all start with one written word.

Interest is the best teacher.

Rain, rain, don't go away....

It's raining hard. Classes were suspended. Done riding in down town Taytay in the middle of the rain checking out the extent of the flooding caused by the monsoon rains.


I had swept the leaves off our front yard, done some bonsai work, fed our two dogs.

Anyway, one of the things I like about riding in the rain is the refreshing feeling of the water running on my face and the sight of raindrops clouding the horizon. 

Also the sight of trees drinking up the water is relaxing. I mean, trees do not literally drink but watching the raindrops falling on the leaves and swaying the branches and leaves sort of give me the anthropomorphic images (whatever that means). 

But the best thing about motorcycling in the rain is the flood. I love ramming through knee high floods with no thought about the motorcycle conking out.  I have confidence in my Suzuki 125 becuase it has never let me down as long as the carburator  and the air intake is not submerged.  

I picked up the classical guitar  and felt sad  that I have forgotten most of what I have learned. Not surprising since I have not touched the instrument for months because it has become painful to play, literally painful. I noticed this about two years ago, first it was numbness in the fingers which made pressing the strings difficult and then my finger joints developed pain which I could only describe as rheumatic. 

Playing the a piece or two is the best I could do before the activity becomes an ordeal. I guess this is because I did not have any formal training with the classical guitar and the lack of knowledge of fingering techniques, and the unsystematic long hours of practice finally took its toll. Well, never been a good player, anyway. No loss.

I am done playing. I thought the long absence would make the pain go away, but there it is again.



I am getting bored and this getting nowhere.

Forty Five and some (useless) thoughts

I was ecstatic that classes were suspended today which means I get to enjoy my birthday doing nothing! 

I guess many would find this a bit strange that a birthday celebrant would rather spend his special day doing nothing than celebrating, but this is how I like it. Cheap, stress free and I get to spend my day with the things I enjoy, family and home. Hahahaha

Getting old, one of my childhood friends now describes me as an old man who hated noise, an allusion to Ka Anto our old  neighbor who in our childhood used to chase us away from the front of his noise house because of the ruckus we made while playing.  We used to tease him by hiding behind the Rosal hedge that surrounded his house and then calling out to his grandchildren, our playmates, but he was always there, like a security guard telling us to go home and sleep. Sleep in the afternoon was a must for children back then, a requirement for healthy growth. Now the very same thing is happening to me, karma, "the curse" as a friend joked to me; I am now the Ka Anto.

I guess middle age does that, nostalgia.

My father died of leukemia at this age, which I though back then was already old. I guess when you're young death is something that is afar, not thought about. But as the years moved along, now in my middle age, time is getting more precious as I get old. 

I have spent my youth in foolishness, a waste. I am adding up the amount of money I spent on beer, gins, rums, cigarettes in my youth and I found out that it was enough to buy me a vehicle and maybe a down payment for a small house. There were times I think and rue about these bad decisions, especially the way I have treated my mother and my siblings, but it's all in the past and I am happy that at least I was able to move along and sort of redeem myself by becoming a productive part of the community.

Forty five years old and what? 

I am not rich. How can I be, I'm a teacher. I'm a sci fi fan and I had this notion that some where out there in an alternate universe there's a very successful copy of me who is a billionaire. The idea is comforting.  But of course, the idea could also be the opposite, I mean in another alternate universe, I could be a hobo or something. Another useless thought hahahaha.

Being poor in middle age does have its worries but I have learned to surrender it to fate and not lose sleep over it. I am not burdened and tied to careers, profits and properties and the only major worry I have is to get my daughter through college and lived to see that she had a good job. 

I have come to the realization, many may dis agree with, that in middle age, it's time to slow down, enjoy works of art and music (not necessarily classical), look at the how wonderful our world is, enjoy the trees, the rain, the storm, etc. Enjoy the little things life offers and avoid things that rob us of its enjoyment.

So, heres looking forward to next year. Enjoy life one day at a time hahahahahah

Graduation, sorry no more traditional brass band, and other stuffs...

There'll be no brass band in this year's graduation ceremonies.For the last seven years I have been with the school, and the decades before that, the school has employed the community band to play and provide  accompaniment to the marches. I guess this tradition  showcased the musical talents of the Taytayenos especially those of Maestro Serving De Leon who wrote and composed the school hymn and Mabuhay ang Taytay and Maestro Fred Villanueva who composed the Mabuhay Rizal, both were Taytayenos and according to TES former music teacher were disciples of Maestro Lucio San Pedro. It's not just tradition, it's  about culture.

________________________________________

The school year will end in two weeks. I am excited about the summer vacation for the much needed break from the daily grind of teaching, paper works, and keeping the classroom in order. I think most teachers will agree with me when I say that the most stressful part of teaching is classroom management.

The classroom is composed of around fifty pupils from different backgrounds and keeping this menagerie of children in order requires so much energy and most of that energy is channeled in keeping the teachers' temper in control. So, don't judge a teacher when he or she is caught slapping a learner. I am not defending the act, but there are times when the teacher have had so much and temper flare up.

We are now in preparing for the graduation ceremonies. I could feel my pupils' excitement but at the same time I could also sense separation anxieties especially among the girls who it seems to be more affected by the impending dissolution of the class. They have been promising never ending friendship and even making pacts that they'll stick together into high school and so on.

I was telling my pupils that in a few months in high school they'll overcome this sense of loss and move on. They'll create new friends and get into deeper relationships and that the classmates they teased during their elem could grow up to be beautiful ladies and the bullies could end up wooing them and vice versa. I told stories from my experiences but I was booed and told that such things would never happen.

Though this is my seventh year in teaching and have had hundreds of pupils passed through my classes, I still feel a sense of sentimentalism, call it that, every time a class graduates. Every class is unique, they develop a corporate identity. I would not say that the last one is better than the others who have moved on, each is different, each has its own identity. I remember last year's class was composed of active pupils who participated in almost every school activities from cooking to singing and dancing and they have won many certificates while last last year's class was made up of athletes, while the current graduating class seemed to be timid and like to keep to themselves.

Like what happen every year, I told my pupils that in a few weeks. I may not be able to remember their names, and in a few months I may not even remember their faces and though we feel so close today, even familial, this will change and there'l come a time that they would even avoid their elementary teachers. 

Life goes on.

Guilt for the unsaved, Sunday meanderings

I have seen people cry because their relatives and close friends do not belong to the same denomination or religion they belong to. 

They feel guilty because they have genuine love for their loved ones and it's really unthinkable to live in paradise while your children, or spouse , or friends are in hell in eternal torture from burning and swimming in sulfuric lava.

There also those who are concerned about their accountability because in the end, when things have come to its realization, they could be held liable for not sharing or convincing people around them to convert to their religion. Of course, the guilt is based on the premise that the only true religion, the only true church is the one that they belong to. 

It's futile to argue about the validity of this claim to exclusivity because almost all of the religion have an exclusivity clause. I am not thinking about Christianity and its thousand of sub-denominations that have their own exclusivity clauses, I'm talking about religions in general. I respect Holy Books but to talk about things, argues, explore reality, within the confine of the pages of these Holy Books is very restrictive and problematic, for me.  There will be no conversation but a one way spoon feeding of doctrines and dogmas.

Think about circumstances, forget yourself for once and pretend that you're someone else who is born in another country, grew up in another culture and belongs to another religion. Let's pretend that you're an average Filipino citizen, born in a Christian culture. You go to church regularly, you work honestly, and you live an average life like an average Filipino. 

Then a Muslim missionary knocked at your door and offered you Islam as the way to your soul's salvation and that Christianity is a false religion, Satan's creation to challenge the real and true religion. (Islam is the fastest growing religion today.) He is offering you a new way of life of devotion to Allah. You may raise your eyebrow because you grew up in a Christian community and is a practicing Christian and your perspective of things is very Christian. 

Christianity (and the church you belong to) is the only true church or true path to salvation because that's what is inculcated in you by your culture, your community, your family, your government and by social genetics. Your whole being is immersed in Christianity and to think apart from this perspective is (almost) incomprehensible, even unthinkable.

And you may be surprised that there are Islamic missionaries because you think Muslims proselytize by the sword or violence.  Your first reaction is hostile. You're instinct is to run or to pray out loud to invoke the power of the Holy Spirit to repel these enemies of the church. But then common sense and education got the better of you and you declined politely.

Of course chances are you will not take  these Muslim missionaries seriously and may even look at the them with suspicion and disdain. But when these missionaries start to open up with their goods and aids, doors would open.

Anyway, this is hypothetical but these missionary thing happen all the time. i think it's only the Buddhist who give shelp without attaching their religion to their charitable works. 

Millions of people who are born in different country, in different cultural setting, in different religious traditions, and in different circumstances in life. To think that God revealed himself to a particular race and that this particular revelation is the only true revelation and is the only true way to salvation (whatever that may mean but I am not inclined to think that souls are meant to walk on gold pavements and sing praises to God in eternity), I think misses the goodness in other people. (the inclusive may say, "Hey we see truth in their beliefs, it's juts that their's is not good enough, they fall short!"

I was reminded of a scene from the novel "To kill a mocking bird" where a white american drunk bum beleived himself to superior to a hard working black american because of his skin color. 

The Jimi Hendrix Sketch Epic saga

After sketching trees which got positive comments from FB friends I had this idea that I think I'm good enough to do portrait sketching. I mean how difficult would it be to transitions from drawing imaginary trees to drawing portraits of people.  

                                                                                                              At its basic elements pencil drawings is all about shapes and shades. I mean this is not water color or painting which requires heavy, heady stuffs like color theory and color mixing.                                                                                                                               So, I thought about it. First was the subject. Hendrix was the obvious choice because the guys had a vast influence on rock and blues music. Secondly, he had a colorful life.                            

Thirdly, the face is  iconic and very recognizable, at least to rock and blues music enthusiasts like me. Since I'm beginner, I thought of the grid method. I put a crisscrossing lines on the picture of Hendrix face and then put coordinates on it so that I could focus on the little things and not get overwhelmed by the details and to make it easier still.                                                                                                                                           I covered the part which I am not drawing, again, the purpose was to isolate the area and not let my wonder get overwhelmed. How difficult could it be when all I had to do was draw this little shapes and shades on this little boxes.                                                                                                           I was doing well in the first part, the neck and the lips. At least the sketch resembled that part of the face. I was positive that I would be able to do this. I am not aiming to copy a picture, what I'm after was the image or the semblance of a Hendrix. 

As the little boxes moved up to Hendrix's nose, I was stumped. How could I make Hendrix's nose appear. When I used borderline on the nose, it appeared cartoonish and looked weird. The human face had no lines, I was reminded of an on line teacher's lesson, most of the features on the face, especially the nose are defined by shadows or tones and not by lines. OK.

 This is the result of my effort.

Jimi Hendrix v.1 lookeslike a Neanderthal man.

 Hendrix v.2 looks like another Neanderthal man.

I guess no one gets it the first or the second time but definitely I will not stop until I get even just a semblance of Hendrix in my drawings. At least, the results are humanoids. hahahah

Pencil drawing and why engage I in it, enjoying the moment of the here and now

I started sketching about a month ago. At first it was a way for me to visualize my bonsai material but as I progressed I realized that I enjoyed the art and have even watched lessons on you tube which is very helpful especially the lessons on principles of sketching. 

How does it benefit me?

no need to beat yourself in the head

I have the tendency to overthink. I think about work, future, family, religion etc.I guess everyone thinks about these thing and more and only the insane are exempt form these anxieties. and when I doodle and draw ( or play the guitar) these negative thoughts are replaced by something else, relaxed concentration. 

Another thing is that my pupils seemed to be impressed by my drawings. Of course they are easy to impress and I'm not fooling myself into thinking that I'm going to be a professional artist or something but impressing the pupils is an asset when it come to teaching MAPEH. I gained more authority, another way to put it.

Now, whether I'm good at it or not, is a question I will not even entertain because once that thought entered my head the interest will be lost. I think the goal of an activity is to enjoy the moment and the journey, It should not to be about being good at it, or to be the best or not all, these thoughts are  joy killers and could be depressing if the expectations are not met. There are a lot of people who gave up what they are doing because they feel they are not good at it, or they loss enthusiasm because someone else is doing better than them, learning faster than them, or worse someone told them they are not good. But that should not be the case. It's all about enjoying the experience and cultivating the interest, nothing more.

I'm fascinated by trees

The best way to do it is to engage an activity with no expectations, nothing, tabula rasa, and from there discover from within if you're into it but don't give up just because you think you're not good at it. It's all about interest and your interest should not be frustrated by failed expectations.

How many times have we heard people say that the real race is against the self and not really against other people but to tell the truth, that is also bull. I mean, you don't have to have a race with anyone not even yourself, It's all about enjoying the moment.

I heard a music teacher say that the inner struggle of learning the classical guitar is the idea of not enjoying the here and the now of the moment. Joy is lost when the learner thinks that he/she should have been better now, should have improved but instead of thinking that way, why not enjoy the moment and the music.

So, don't punsih yourselves, do good and beautiful things because you enjoy and surely you'll be rewarded like I hope I would be, but then again, I set no expectations.

Meanderings on Religious Exclusivity

Put plainly, religious exclusivity is the belief that my religion is the only true religion and the others are bullshits. (Bullshit is a PC word compared to what preachers say about people who do not belong to their religions and the traditional nomenclatures they use ranges from infidels, condemned, pagan, unsaved, children of Satan, demons, witches, etc. :Bullshit" is way, way kinder than these terms and to think that some religions even behead people who do not subscribe to their beliefs. Definitely, bullshit is much better) . 

Another dogma of religious exclusivity is the conviction that only those who belong to my religion would go to paradise. Well, to tell the truth, not even all those who are in my religion would go to paradise because there's a selection process that the believers must go through like indoctrination, infant circumcision, prayers, pilgrimage, holy wars, etc. Even those who have participated and met these requisites do not automatically become saved, there is the other part, the inner conversion, the miraculous transformation of the believer, the spiritual thingy.

Now, if one sits down and give enough time and coffee  to think about it, it is obvious that religious exclusivity is one of the the roots of all evil. I would not even dare say it is religion because there are religions that would not even hurt an insect! 

Open your history books and you'll read that most of the man-made miseries in the world is caused by the idea of religious exclusivity. Even today, watching the current event in the Middles East I am inclined to think that this area of the world is in the dark age because the region is divided into religious factions each killing one another primarily because of the differences in the interpretation of their holy book and secondly because the schisms are being taken advantaged of by the Western primarily Christian part of the world to advance their interests. 

These fanatics that came from the same religious gene cannot coexist with one another because of the effing idea that heaven is reserved to the few. Pity the innocent and the decent people who simply want to live in peace but no, they must be converted.

The idea of exclusivity goes back to the primordial soup and the microbes. Microbes based their survival in one scientific principle of physics and that is "no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time". 

So, what the microbes do is multiply fast and produce enzyme or whatever you call these stuff they produce to displace another group of microbes. they congregate and those who are not within their congregation are displaced and then exterminated.

Exclusivity is a survival mechanism. It is built in to every living things' DNA from the microbes to Bill Gates. Animals form packs, herds, schools etc, to protect themselves from their predators and also these animal group protects themselves from their own kind in their struggle for food and territory. People are not that different, though we have evolved and transcended the animals' feral struggle for survival, yet exclusivity is still humanity's primary motivation for the struggle against each other though unlike the animals, people tend to cling to exclusivity more out of greed and not of need.

Socially, for us exclusivity is primarily genetics. We form group from families, to clans, to tribes, to nation from which sprung up belief system. Religion is nothing but an extension of the clan, the social family. 

One current proof of exclusivity  is what Trump is doing now.

It is understandable now why this idea is easily translatable into the beliefs or faiths. Religious exclusivity especially among the Abrahamic religion is primarily a survival mechanism which in the process of historical evolution has become the mechanism for oppression and control especially among its fundamentalist and fanatical adherents.