Culture Defined

Everyone associates themselves with a particular way of life, with a culture. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines culture as “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.” Culture is something that is integrated in our every-day lives. We experience different forms of culture on a daily basis. We can associate ourselves with the culture that comes from our heritage, but we can also associate ourselves with the culture we share with our friends, coworkers, neighbors, and families.So, how can we begin to comprehend a word with such a diverse and vast array of meanings? What does it mean to be cultured and how can we keep our culture, while at the same time, experiencing and sharing in different cultures?I come from a Greek heritage. My grandfather on my dad’s side of the family emigrated to the U.S. from Greece when he was sixteen years old. He moved to San Francisco, worked on the railroads, and fell in love with an Armenian woman, my grandmother. I was christened in the Greek Orthodox Church as a baby, I watched my dad cook dolmas, or stuffed grape leaves, from scratch as a little girl, and I always came home with a goldfish I had won from the annual Greek Festival. To me, that was what it was like to be Greek. I loved baklava, I loved to dance, and I loved the Olympics, so I was Greek.But, I am a Greek who lives in America, so I also identify with the American way of life. I have acquired a drive to succeed at whatever I set my sights on. I am former Senior Class President, school newspaper contributor, and sorority girl. I love watching football with my dad on the weekends, and I could eat a hamburger and fries every day.I am also a Greek-American living in Southern California, which means that the majority of my summers were spent at the beach, or if not at the beach, in a swimming pool. I still, to this day, spend 350 days out of the year in flip flops. Although I do not mold to the stereotype of a SoCal surfer-girl, I still find myself one with the ocean.I was also born and raised in Los Angeles, which is a completely different culture in and of itself. I listen to whole albums on repeat in the amount of time that I sit in traffic trying to get to where I want to go. I regularly practice yoga. I exercise by hiking Runyon Canyon, after which I will reward myself with a Pressed Juice, a kale salad, or an In-N-Out burger. I aspire to enter into the creative field of writing, and as such, I spend a good amount of my days creating in different coffee shops around LA, with a cold brew, of course.Still, my culture can be boiled down even more than that. I am a born and raised “valley girl.” I have infiltrated my friends’ vocabulary with phrases like, “I literally can’t even,” “Stop it,” “totally awesome,” and, of course, “Oh. My. God.” I frequent the mall and can get myself downtown by taking the 101 to the 405 to the 10 to the 110.You see, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary also defines culture as “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group,” and “the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time.” In this sense of the word, culture can be attained regularly in many different facets of life. Theoretically, you could attain a new culture every day. So, why does difference in culture create bridges between people? How can culture be distinct and shared at the same time?We may be able to celebrate our unique culture, heritage, or beliefs, while also experiencing and sharing in those cultures that our different than our own. When we do this, we offer our own experiences and beliefs into the creation of a world culture. Now, this does not erase the significance of distinct cultures that have evolved since the beginning of time. Rather, it allows us to celebrate these various cultures. We can learn about different cultures. We can find similarities and differences between and within our own various cultures and between those cultures that are different than our own. We may have to continually work at tactfully straddling the line between respecting different cultures and sharing in them. It may not be a course of action that will ever be brought to perfection, but if we practice it regularly, it could be a course of action that is improved every day with the contributions of people and cultures from all around the world.