Creating Change – Continued…

Human littleness and complexity.

Trying to look at the whole picture of pain and injustice will have to wait a bit as I have started to think about our human littleness instead. I am remembering how it feels to be walking alone on the moors, moving away from all artificial light and at some point looking in to the pitch black darkness of night. No outlines, no sense of direction and feeling blind and lost. On a clear night though, the night will not envelope me in complete darkness and looking upwards and into the skies, the endless amount of shining stars tells a story of limitless space and of our human littleness. Our insignificance and powerlessness in the face of the entire universe. Sometimes experiences like this can invigorate and inspire people; make them decide to make their mark on the world in the short time they have here. Sometimes at can throw people into despair and existential distress. Deeply feeling ones own powerlessness is scary. We are such vulnerable and limited creatures in our little bodies made of soft flesh and fragile bones. No matter how much knowledge we put into our heads, our minds cannot understand much of the complexity of life. And as the wonders of technology are making the world smaller, the amount of information we receive every day about anything and everything has become ginormous – enough to break anyone’s mind if they tried to grasp it all at once.

The complexity of human life is intriguing to me and I struggle to understand how we continue to exist. Here on earth we are approximately 7 billion people and each of us live in our own unique little universe created by all the experiences we have had – whether they are conscious to us or not. All that has been happening around us, all that has been said and done – all of it has shaped our present way of thinking, our subjective way of perceiving the world. I sometimes do this thing where I imagine every person as a sphere and the world full of billions of spheres, of personal universes moving about, weaving in and out and between each other. Colliding, moving apart, changing directions and paces, transforming as they glide through time and space. All of these unique little universes are moving about, trying to figure out how to live and in doing that they sometimes cause pain. Some more than others, some deliberately, others semi-intentionally and unintentionally.

Pain.

I think pain is a natural human condition and I am not sure that the way forwards lies in minimising pain, stopping people who cause pain or seeking retribution for pain caused. I think we all cause pain one way or another, to ourselves and others. Should we all be punished? Should we be at loggerheads with each other about whose pain is more deserving of acknowledgement or about when causing pain is justified? I believe it is good at times to give attention to pain, try and understand it but it is interesting to me that in trying to relieve pain we sometimes end up causing pain… Some times it is accidental, sometimes the wider social norms justify it and sometimes individuals and groups are completely aware that they cause pain to relieve their own.

None of us know the full extent of the consequences of our actions. Most of the time we do not know whether the stone we throw into the water will cause a tsunami somewhere far away or if it will bring life-full movements into stagnant waters. We cannot know and maybe that is good – we might be paralysed with fear or go mad with the sense of power if we knew. What we can do is look to the past; we can look into our own life experiences to try and extract what felt meaningful, what felt deeply honouring of all life and then consider how we can support the creation of more of that, more of those moments. We can also try and pinpoint personal and collective patterns that seemed to limit the amount of life-full moments we ourselves and others experience.

I want to go back to the list of things I find it painful to think of so I will pluck up my courage and write on. In this moment I feel pain when I think of:

• The continuing conflict between Israel and Palestine

• The fear of terrorism

• The racism and discrimination billions of people face every day

• The beating and raping of children, women and men all over the world, every day.

• The intensive farming of animals so that humans can eat stressed out, medication-filled meat.

• The demolition of ancient forests

• The abuse and neglect of animals that are dependent on human kindness because we have domesticated them

• The exploitation of the land; for gas, oil, minerals, metals and other assumed essentials.

• The injustice to all native people in the world who have been and continue to be colonised

• The plight of the aboriginal people in Australia

• The extreme unequal distribution of resources and food globally

• Food waste

• The industrialisation of food. We do not need processed food…

• The loss of human connectedness with the spiritual world – forgetting that there is more in this world and to life than us

• The dumping of endless amounts of non-degradable waste in the underground, in the oceans and in space

• The perceived need for weapons and warfare

• Child soldiers

• People feeling more safe with things and objects than with other people

• The pornofication of sex and the fear of sexuality and physical intimacy

• The hunger for money and fame that drives some young people

• Elitist thinking

• The “them and us” thinking that creates divides and justifies injustice

• The millions and millions of people isolated and restrained in prisons and mental health institutions and that they are considered by some to be beyond help and second rate human beings

• The growing amount of asphalt and concrete sealing us off from the earth beneath us

• The architectural demonstrations of power and exclusivity that is deemed appropriate and even necessary for administrative, governing and financial buildings

• People being forced out of their homes

• Man-made pollution of the air that we need to breathe

• People who don’t know how to connect meaningfully with others

• TV-shows and advertising that manipulates and distracts us from living. And all the money spent on those…

• The justification and celebration of violence in mainstream media

Many of the above items are just headings or titles for long, long lists of more specific incidents. Writing abstract titles seemed to be the only way my mind could handle the awareness of all of this. The things that need our attention and consideration in the world are innumerable and we can only do so much; both as individuals and as groups, communities and societies.

Chosing what to do and how to do it is a daunting task…