The Human Connection

I managed to spend last Wednesday resting and dedicating my time thinking about life and how I fit in the world. It was a day of rest but this doesn’t mean that I spent the day doing nothing and lingering in bed. Indeed, when I spent time meditating or paying attention to all I did, I couldn’t help noticing that there were thoughts and feelings that emerged that weren’t so peaceful.

 

While we associate silence with peace and tranquility, a moment of silence can trigger an inner revolt that, at times, can bring to our awareness our best or our worse qualities. At least, this was my experience. It can get uncomfortable when you come face-to-face with all the bad things that seem to rise out of your mind. But, I think, it’s important for us to know that these thoughts that have accumulated inside are there. This prepares us when we are in a position to act.

 

I also realised that only a fool tries to deny his or her humanity. For all that we have accumulated in terms of knowledge and wisdom is inseparable from our being human. Not even hard science, which often claims to be objective, can escape the fact that even science cannot escape what I shall call the “human connection”. After all, we use our senses to interpret the world. Technology has permitted to access realities that we couldn’t access before due to our senses.

 

Technology that enables us to look at or listen to galaxies far away. Technology that enables us to study the microscopic and subatomic. Before, we would never imagined there could exist such realities so immense and so miniscule. Indeed, we would be excused for believing that such things didn’t exist at all. But, inasmuch as we progress in technology or scientific understanding, we remain bound to our humanity. The fact that we cannot escape our material being. The fact that whatever we produce remains limited by our body and mind.

 

Indeed, If you think about it, no area of human endeavour can escape this fact that whatever we have or build arises out of a complex relation between us and the world that is mediated through our body and mind. And, however efficient these might be in making sense of the world, they remain limited. Thus, if we hold on the idea that our reality is the only valid one, we risk misunderstanding what reality is. We fail to acknowledge that our view of the world is but one way of looking at things. However, the greatest danger is that in excluding other points of view, we also forget our basic humanity. And when that happens, we can expect  disaster for all of us.

 

So we create a politics preoccupied with votes and power, a science lacking respect for human dignity, an economy that puts money before ecology, a philosophy that condemns us to nihilism and a religion more preoccupied with rites and rituals than rekindling the human spirit.

 

This is what happens when we close ourselves to a restricted world view and one that denies our basic interdependence. It’s a world that by excluding our human connections to it, slowly conspires for our destruction.

 

Yes, this appears to be a rather gloomy post. However, I am convinced that even the most painful experiences have taught me something about who I am. I try to hold on to my commitment to grow as a human being every day. Yes, it’s sometimes good to stop what you’re doing for a while and really reflect on why you’re doing it. For, otherwise, you would be living without purpose and be unprepared when you are desperately seeking answers. When you’re in much need of hope and direction.

 

And, whoever we are, we need to remember that our life is only possible thanks to the contribution of so many people. I admit that I keep returning to that point. Forgive me for that but the more I think about it, this reality of my  human connection restores my hopes and faith that if we work together for a world that embraces the human spirit, we may be still in time to save lives and, ultimately,  our planet.