There are many approaches to the times in which we are now living. For some people, it floats their boats to be divisive and hateful- to discourage unity and encourage separation. There have been countless attempts to explain away this way of being, using a cerebral way of dealing. With so many "intelligent" people out here, we have "thought" our way into a sea of corruption. I consider myself a well-educated person, but I have chosen to cope with what is going on around me not using the strength of my mind alone. I have chosen to incorporate more of my heart to help guide me toward a safe space. Why? Because I know that that heart space component is the one least used in any of this drama. The heart is not being used with regard to the senseless violence, the heart is not being used to push people out and away, and the heart is certainly not being used to keep innocent children locked away from their families. I figure, why not exercise a heart space of dealing at this time, regardless of how unmentioned it is? Be divisive if you will. Try to separate if you will. No matter the tactic, none of us are or will be immune to the chaos that is currently happening around and to us all at lightening speed. Whether we would like to believe it or not, we have one apparent example from the spread of our current pandemic to show us how connected we all really are. Yet, whether it is a physical contamination, or a cancerous mindset, focusing on the symptoms vs. the root can leave us at a standstill. Also, disguising the root, creating a derailment to lead people to believe a false narrative about the core of an issue can do, has done, and will continue to do, for many, irreversible harm. Why do we allow ourselves to continuously run on this hamster wheel of a solution quest instead of getting to the heart of problems? It is because the fear of doing something we've never done as a community is so grave that we'd rather take a suppressant than go through the seemingly mysterious process of true healing. Fear of the unknown rules us. Peeling away layers can bring about all sorts of emotions that we are not prepared for, understood, but the saying is true: We cannot keep doing the same thing expecting different results. Explained best by Michael Singer, author of perhaps my all-time favorite manual for life, "The Untethered Soul" compares a human internal issue to the initial annoyance of a physical inner thorn and what can happen if we choose to avoid and go around the thorn vs. dealing with it and taking it out altogether: "...the effects of the choice you make will determine the course of the rest of your life. This is one of the core-level, structural decisions that lay the foundation for your future." He goes on to explain how going around vs. dealing with the core of an issue- even creating profitable ways to teach others how to avoid coming into contact with their own "thorns" might bring about feelings of success on the surface, yet, the truth is, what you have done is allowed the "thorn" to run your entire life, and have taught people how to allow their "thorns" to control their lives, too. This, limiting you and others in ways unable to be imagined. Comparing how people individually or collectively confront inner issues to Mr. Singer's examples of handling an actual physical thorn, it is fair to say that we do put forth a tremendous amount of effort and time avoiding dealing with truth. Removing the actual thorn itself, or getting to the root of an issue might initially bring about a novel sense of discomfort or pain, but that pain is epheremal, short-lived. Juxtapose that short-lived experience to a whole life of living on the margins of who you could have really become in your life all due to choosing not to implement the use your heart. Who we can really be in our lives as a community, as a world, is limited, stagnated, stained- all because we refuse to do the real heavy lifting. We will never experience the gloriousness we deserve as a nation until we commit to unraveling the pain caused to groups of people, the effects of that pathology, and how we can systematically make steps toward reversing the damage done.
If we can pull out our historical "thorns" in full, and encourage a future way of thinking and being that routinely faces issues head on rather than avoids them and creates problems around them, we will all be better for it. This is not to benefit any of the quote unquote races. Getting to the heart, the origin of what has driven the wedge between people to begin with, will benefit everyone.
It is clear that there are those who would not like to see others benefit- those who only wish for the ones who they deem worthy to shine. This plague-like mindset maybe only fundamentally considers people who look like them, or perhaps they only truly care about people who have the same socio-economic status. These are the only people whose success and prosperity that would make these one-track thinkers feel content. It is painfully understood that we all live the effects and consequences of this bias. Not considered though, was the fact that imbalanced belief systems have not only negatively affected poor people- the frustrations of the have-nots are now moving up to the haves. The unrest is universal.
What would define as an opposite perspective? I dug up and dusted off two words that I have not seen in print for quite some time: Consideration and Harmony.
Consideration and Harmony only calls forth good, satisfied feelings. And, imagine, consideration and harmony can be accomplished all without over exerting yourself. It takes more energy to be angry, more facial effort to frown than to smile. It takes more breath to yell and scream at people than to laugh with them. And having a sense of consideration from and for others, and harmony with others in your life simply feels better. We use up way too much energy to our detriment, when we could be preserving energy to use for enjoyment for the next fellowship or coming together socially distanced, or hopefully, later, otherwise.
Breaking it down as simply as I can make it: Let us try to bring more ease to ourselves and to others. People with hate in their hearts, hateful doings in their behavior: Give in. Apologize, and do what needs to be done to correct the wrongdoing. Learn from some of the oppressed about how to implement a healthy amount of humility and fairness into your lives. Trust, you will feel better. You will wake up every morning ignited by a sense of purpose that moves you forward, rather than waking up with a burning ill motivation that keeps you stagnated in a web of a negative going nowhere.
The positive bottom line for our world has been made to seem so impossible to achieve, and while there are indeed layers to years and centuries of disfunction to unravel and repair, the first step toward that ultimate magnanimous goal is in fact, not complicated at all:
Choose Light.
For You and All of Us,
CLP