Cross The Line

Have you ever played the game called Cross The Line?  It's where everyone starts lined up on one side of a line drawn on the floor and a moderator reads a statement that starts with "cross the line if..." and if that describes you, you step over the line.  Then everyone steps back to the same side of the line and the moderator reads another statement.  I've seen it used in classes and groups to make a point about diversity.  I've also seen it done in such a way that it reveals a lot more about people than what they'd ever tell you.

It can be so simple.

Cross the line if your favorite color is blue.
Cross the line if you like drinking coffee.
Cross the line if you've ever been out of the country.
Cross the line if you have siblings.

Or it can be so much more complex.

Cross the line if you're broken.
Cross the line if you've been hurt.
Cross the line if you wish you could change something in the past.
Cross the line if you don't know where you're going in life.
Cross the line if you're afraid.
Cross the line if you don't know who you are.

It's the sort of thing that really opens your eyes.  It makes you look at people in a different way because it's so much easier to just take that step instead of explaining what happened and how it happened and why you feel that way.  It's a way of showing just how much we aren't alone in this world.  And it's the sort of thing that's absolutely fascinating in the moment, but so hard to talk about later, because if you brought it up, you'd have to talk and you'd have to explain.

The format of stepping over a line makes everything into a yes or no question, and if you're not sure, you go with your gut.  When everything is condensed to black and white, it's a lot easier to reveal something about yourself.  Maybe that says something about human thinking--that it's so much easier to generalize than to actually talk about the way we feel.  Everything has to be positive or negative.  Even if we admit that it has traces of both, it's always a question of how it was on the whole--good or bad?

It's strange to me that something so simple can reveal so many complicated things about people.  But I guess that it shouldn't surprise me.  Few things really do anymore...unfortunately, perhaps.