In our busyness, going about our daily routines, chores, jobs, recreations and so forth we more often than not fail to notice an obvious truth- our dependence upon something much greater than ourselves individually and collectively. This failure to honestly see ourselves as dependent beings in a rather fundamental sense contributes significantly to our inability to solve ordinary problems as well as our most pressing ones such as decent housing for all, adequate health care, access to nourishing food, family planning, violent conflict and ecological degradation and so forth. We act like leaves scattered in the torrent of unpredictable winds and have by and large lost an essential faith in one another and the sense of the sacred that could help us achieve a genuine humility, balance and courage to live with wisdom and maturity.
But why do we not see this apparently simple truth? In order to understand this we must consider the nature of human culture. Briefly put, culture acts as a very powerful filter, a great conversation(among people and their artifacts) in space and time which informs and conditions the way we perceive and communicate. It gives us a necessary social cohesiveness. The problem, however, arises when the screening and informing functions of culture blinds us to extra or trans cultural aspects of our existence. We fail, for example, to see and respect how others live who differ from us in the way they experience the world. In our case, we weave the cultural narrative of an intrinsic loneliness to our lives, discontentment with those lives and a competition with others for almost everything. Eric Fromm, the well known social psychologist, described this well in his book, "The Sane Society". He wrote that our economic system, an aspect of our culture, forces us to have a "marketing" orientation to one another which in turn isolates us from each other and makes potential adversaries of our fellow human beings. This can also extend to the so-called natural world in general-the ecologically embedded context in which we live and have our life. We come to view this nature as dangerous and alien having no intrinsic value other than for transformation and exploitation. Finally, culture stops us from entertaining possibilities that could help us solve our problems more effectively. And even though we make our cultures, we find them difficult to change. In fact, we cannot easily change them without suffering at the same time disorienting dislocations. In fact, we need others to help us see how culture imprisons us and how with the help of others we can learn to free ourselves.
Another reason for our failure to grasp our dependence rests on the fact that dependence means vulnerability which we may experience as fear and shame. Fear and shame wall us off from our deeper needs making it difficult for us to face and to accept our simple, but fundamental need for one another. But paradoxically our primal weakness in the face of real uncertainties gives us the opportunity to find and know our real strength in the genuine solidarity we forge with others.
Let us note the simple act of breathing, the inhalation and exhalation, polar aspects of a single process, that we all take for granted unless of course we suffer from some pulmonary disorder. A moments reflection reveals a basic debt to the green plants that we live with. The forests of this planet provide more than just wood for building houses, furniture or fuel. Without these lungs and living green factories absorbing CO2 and breathing out oxygen we could not exists as respiring beings. Colin Turnbull, a cultural anthropologist, in his marvelous book, "The Forest People", describes the attitude of the Pygmies of the Ituri forest in Africa. They consider the forest not merely as the source of their food and shelter, but more importantly as a sacred living presence that they believe and know sustains them. How quaint and primitive we may view this enmeshed as we are in our mighty, industrial and computerized technology never once considering this vast technology as a kind of "womb" of our own making and ironically becoming dangerously close to our unmaking.
The question "why" arises of itself in our consciousness naturally. For some a faint whisper, for others an insistent passionate appeal. The question has many variations and try as we may to escape its presence, we can not.It demands an answer and more than this- a full response. The full blossoming of our self-awareness that accompanies this "why" into self-enclosed little fragile egos makes us feel terribly alone. But moving further into this loneliness leads us inexorably to a deeper truth: our connection and continuity with the world. And this means genuine community.
To be continued....
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