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.

A Hospital Retreat - Part 2

Continues from Part 1
Now seven days since I was hospitalise. I can't deny that this stay, like all the others before, don't upset my daily routine and force me to confront an aspect of life we often forget or choose to avoid acknowledging. For, in spite of all progress in our standards Oc living, many face the reality of illness and old age. And no one can really escape death.

My life right now appears almost unreal. I do sometimes feel as if this will never end. Yet, as I take the time to apply what I learned from my Buddhist teachings, I realise that this too will pass. However, even if the temptation is to avoid thinking of the pain I'm going through, I am realising that dealing with this experience as it manifests itself leaves me feeling more peaceful and serene.
This insight into this suffering seems to be counter-intuitive. Yet, accepting what is happening right now as it happens does help free the mind from intensifying the suffering as it considers the future while it gives you back some control over your life. After all, the fact that we all get ill and many of us will get old is an inescapable part of life. Death is also inevitable.

There's a certain sadness that emerges from considering these three realities so central to buddha's teachings. We are too attached to the idea that we can remain closed to accepting that life is impermanent and temporal. But, then we risk loosing a very precious truth about our human condition. That, in spite of their repulsiveness, illness, old age and death; all connect us. All affect us as living beings. All reveal that other differences based on other aspects of who we are such as race, gender, disability, faith and sexual orientation; are only secondary to our basic humanity.

These three realities not only define us as humans, they can be the source and motivations behind our greatest achidvements.
I don't know how long I'll be here in hospital. But, as I said before, I'll try to make the best of it. Of course, I will do my best to regain my health. Bug, equally important, I want to grow spiritually and appreciate more the life I have and receive the present moment with an open heart and awakened mind.

Related entries:
Letting Go - A Haiku Trio

Location:Mater Dei Hospital, Msida

A Hospital Retreat - Part 1

Last Tuesday, I was admitted to hospital to undergo a number of rtests so that doctors can figure out what was causing the problems I was having recently. Here, it's not my intention to talk about my health issues. Yet, every time I'm admitted to hospital reminds me of how unpredictable our lives really are. This week, I had to deliver a presentation at a local conference but even if I had prepare everything for the following Friday, I found myself on a hospital bed. We can and make plans for the future, but it would be foolish for us to get too attached to them. This realisation of impermanence appears to be more in my life. Not that it wasn't there before but it can be an uncomfortable truth to face.

At the same time, since my Buddhist practice of mindfulness, I also learned it would be a tragedy if life wasn't subject to change. We would be justified then to fall into despair and become despondent. It would be futile to hope and to dream. Yes, I know that hard days seem eternal and oppressive. But, even now, I'm still in hospital, I have more time to practice meditation which lifts up my spirit as I notice that I can learn even from this experience. That, even if we don't see hospitals as pleasant places, there are people who care about the welfare of others. Of course, you'll also find people who don't care about others but only see their work as another job to get over and done with. However, this shouldn't diminish the daily acts of humanity and compassion taking place here.

We shouldn't forget that hospital itself can also be a happy place. most of people e West, living in the West, are born in a hospital. The hospital is also a space where people get better or given another chance to live better again. And, yes, it's also where people die. Hospital reflects life but in a way, hospital can quickly become almost an unreal location which we deny exists because we want to hide, perhaps, from those aspects of life which are difficult to come to terms with. A life which not only consists of health and beauty but one also characterise by old age, illness and death.
As I type this from hospital, I am still waiting for news about my health. I also hope to return to my previous life. However, thanks to mobile technology, I can still reach out to the world. And this made it possible for me to end my series entitled 'In Memory of Identity '.

I am also taking this hospital stay as an opportunity to grow in self-awareness and cultivate my understanding of life and reality. This blog started off following a hospital experience.

But, even if I've changed a lot in how I view my life, I realise how very little I actually know.
Such as to appreciate more of what I've been given. For, in an earlier time, I would surely not have survived till 30.
Continued...

Location:Mater Dei Hospital, Msida

Disconnected in a Networked World

Today, most of us living in  are connected in a way or another to the world wide web. In fact, the very existence of this blog depends on the developments that took place in history, most obvious being the development of networked information systems, the computer itself and the  software needed to operate this new technology. 

However, there are less obvious factors that are not immediately relevant. For instance, adequate supply of food, water and energy; the fact that we are safe, even the fact that we can access the technology and had the opportunity to learn how to use it. Whether we like it or not, this legacy is also built on a history of the exploitation of natural resources, the practice of slavery, and bloody battles and wars between nations - to name just a  few. There’s, of course, plenty of positive events that characterize our history, such as our solidarity for other nations which experience natural disasters, persecution, war and oppression. Our human inheritance reflects who we are as a species. There is plenty of good in everyone of us, but there’s that potential for destruction that is concerning. Particularly because it can destroy all we have built in a blink of an eye. In addition, although we may take this technology, many people living around the world are still excluded from internet access due to lack of resources or educational opportunities (to name just a few). 

But what does this have to do with social networks? Apart from the dangers of our growing reliance, if not dependence, on social networks, there is also the risk that we forget that there are other people who either choose to keep their distance from the technology that enable social networks, there are others who simply have no choice in the matter. While this is a significant issue in its own right, in this meditation, I wish to focus my attention on the potential of social networks in communication and the possible pitfalls of this technology. 

Social networks have been hailed as a radical shift in how people connect with one another. Personally, over the course of internet use since the late 90s, I submitted a lot of profiles and registered to so many sites that I forget. But, the question really is whether this paradigm shift in communication is making us better at relating to one another. In addition, are we being authentic or sincere in the way we present ourselves to the online world?

Here, I acknowledge that the internet has opened up possibilities that I would never have imagined. I can communicate with people around the world by using various means, such as blogs, podcasts, social networks, etc. Indeed, this technology enables to reach out to more people beyond the barriers of time and space or the disabling environment that still restricts my movement in society as a wheelchair user. However, while I type about the positive aspects in all this, I can’t help wonder whether by choosing this medium for communication, like many others are doing, I’m losing something in the process.

And this something is really being in the presence of another human being. While we can communicate by writing, podcasting our message, recording a youtube video or posting a status update, I feel that this cannot replace the human element. In fact, I fear that this technology can make us forget that, on the other end, there are people coming from different backgrounds and who have their own insight into life.

I fear that instead of connecting to a wider world, we form our own exclusive communities which promote exclusion rather than encourage inclusion and social dialogue. Indeed, another serious danger remains that we lose our sense of who we are and surround ourselves with things that validate us and make us feel good about who we are. Finally, the danger is that we end up misrepresenting ourselves for fear of being unpopular or not fitting in with the rest of people. At the same time, in an attempt to draw attention to ourselves, we may also choose to be controversial, if not seek notoriety.

However, what it boils down is the fact that I’m left a feeling with a certain disconnection with those who are my online friends and contacts. This is not because I doubt their intentions are insincere, but they remain, at best, incomplete and, at worse, even isolating. Of course, there is value to social networks as they provide people, like myself, who still encounter problems with accessing society with the opportunity to relate to others regardless of time and distance.

However, as II end this rather lengthy meditation, I cannot help comment that I believe that social networks and the internet as a whole is not a replacement for our need to connect to other people. It may help, yes, but there will still be an essential component that we can only find in human relations where we are in the presence of another. Believe me, we may be accepting or even loving of other people in the online world but find out that we meet that sane person face-to-face, we become not so accepting and tolerance. Indeed, the old saying that “action speak louder than words” is quite appropriate in this context. For in an attempt to fulfill the need to belong on the world wide web, we might really end up entangled in its thread and even lose the sense of reality and of who we are.