“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Albert Einstein
I’m a partner in a Genii Earth, LLC a futuring company. Our business is to enable rapid shifts in consciousness and action in individuals and collectives to enable us to work and live today in a way that generates a beautiful human presence in the future on planet Earth. In that context, I am going to make a bold assertion. If only one thing were to change in our world, everything would change for the better. The one thing? We all began to live as if this abbreviated expression of the quote above were true, “everyone, and everything, is inextricably interconnected”.
Why do I assert this? Because the predominant context in which we are living is contrary to this. We are experiencing the ramifications of a world view that sounds rather like this: “I am separate from you, and especially separate from others not like me and from all non-human life. I don’t need to care for things that aren’t me. Things that are separate from me, I can harm without self-harm.”
When we lived in small tribes this paradigm could work. When there were 500 million or even 3 billion of us on the planet, this could work. When we did not have technologies that could literally destroy human civilization, we could afford this world view. But none of that is true today.
Imagine instead. We are living not only as our brother and sister’s keepers, but as our sisters and brothers. We are living in profound relationship with all of life, a relationship of reciprocity. We don’t externalize costs, because we know that every debt we incur is one we ourselves pay. The joy of others lifts our hearts because it is our joy. The pain of others hurts our hearts because we literally experience it as our pain. And this extends to the rest of the living world. We have re-entered the web of life consciously.
A big leap from where we seem to be in this moment in human history? Certainly. Necessary for our future well-being? Seems so to me. Possible? Yes, if you and I choose to see ourselves as connected to everyone and everything—and act consistent with this declaration.
