Another day of living, taking and giving. We take with every inhale, we give back with every exhale. There is no escaping this until we stop breathing and leave this earth. We all breathe the same air while we’re here so we are all brothers and sisters, and we must start to live by this truth rather than just talk or debate about it. Philosophizing is great, and it is in fact necessary, but if every truth of life is reduced to just an idea, which can either be accepted or discarded, then we have to wonder about the utility of our philosophy. The truth that we are all connected is evident to all of us, it is not a great hidden mystery. It is a truth that we can’t just talk about, we must feel it, we must understand it, we must put it into practice at all times. Whenever a new possibility arises, or any new situation, we are quick to look for whatever we can gain from it. Too often however, we completely overlook another even more important aspect of it, which is what we can give, what we can contribute to any given situation or project. Life itself, the world, society, these are the biggest projects we have going on on this planet, and if we were born here, if we find ourselves alive right now, it’s because we have something to contribute to them. Whether you believe in God or not, if you believe that life has any meaning at all, any deep significance, then there must be a meaning for you being born in the family you were born in, in the city and the country you were born in. Regardless of what your religion might teach, regardless of the metaphysical implications of your belief about life, we all find ourselves alive, in this life, in this crazy world, not really knowing why. We are all trying to live our lives as best as we can, all trying to make sense of the events which happen all around us every day, to integrate them into our lives, to learn what we can so that we may live life better every day. Life is about falling down and getting back up time and time again, it’s about failing, learning from our failures, and then moving forward with our new knowledge, trying to do better tomorrow. None of us have it all figured out, but a lot of us love pretending that we do. We love acting as if we have all the answers, since this makes us feel somewhat secure of our position in life. We look down at others who don’t have it all figured out like we firmly believe we do, and we stop associating with people since we don’t want to be dragged down to their level, or we don’t think they have anything to contribute to our lives. When we do this, we stop ask for help when we need it, and we don’t try to help others either, we never consider the possibility that anyone else might have any way to help us with anything. We isolate ourselves in a comfortable bubble, we focus all our time on trying to improve our own lives, and we ignore all the ways in which we could help all those around us. The problem with this is that we can never truly progress if we neglect the social aspect of our nature. We are all social creatures, we were all born with the capacity to interact because we are meant to interact, we are meant to build together, we are meant to help each other up when we fall. Things work much better this way. It is something that has been proven time and time again, something that we all know, yet we continue trying to live our lives on our own terms, never listening to any advice, never stepping out of our comfort zone to help anyone in need. When enough people start living like this, others begin to sense it. People feel vulnerable, like they can’t trust their neighbors, they can’t trust the teachers, the cops, the politicians, the police. But who are these politicians and police? Who are the criminals and the terrorists? They are people like us, breathing, living people. So, as we start to feel suspicious about our government and also about the criminals, about the terrorists as well as the police, then we are really starting not to trust humanity as a whole. We all try to get ahead, and in our desperation to get ahead, we are quick to step on others to get what we want. We worry only for ourselves, and it is easy for us to ignore the pain we have caused others as long as we can enjoy the benefits we got from it ourselves. We never take into consideration that, with every dishonest act, with everything we do to harm others and benefit ourselves, we help create an atmosphere of hostility, of distrust, an environment in which no one can rely on anyone else. Since more and more people start feeling this way, they also start acting out of desperation and fear, they start to “understand” that the world is a wicked place, that people only look out for themselves, no matter where we go, and that if we want to survive, we will have to do the same. So many of us have adopted this attitude, and because of that it’s almost impossible to fully trust anyone these days. This is really a sad state of affairs, since our whole society runs on trust, and the more we feel that we are isolated from everyone else, the more we feel that we don’t need anyone else to live life, that we don’t need to connect with anyone else, the more we will contribute to the downfall of civilization by helping to sever the connections between human beings. Before you do anything, before you start any new project, take a moment to remember that life is not only about taking, but also about giving. Think of what you can do to make a difference in someone’s life, even if it’s a small, positive difference. We all have to start somewhere, and maybe we can reverse some of the damage that has already been done.
To be continued tomorrow, on Day 68.
~ Rebel Spirit
rebel eye 