Well it’s been a long time since I last wrote on here. A product of lacking confidence in what I have to say, combined with the distractions of the social media world with its instant access to zillions of bite-sized bits of ideas, and links to an ever-changing sea of information, opinion and stories. Why blog in this world? Because it’s a form of expression. Because amidst all this noise we are on journeys of finding ourselves, of finding each other, of connecting, of sharing… And this is important. Maybe the most important thing there is, whether we’re thinking about the environment, the planet we live on, or peace, freedom (including from the fear that grips us when we hide away), justice, kindness, security… our relationships with other humans as well as the non-human world. In the end, it’s all about relationships. And about, as much as possible, and wherever and whenever possible, finding love in those relationships, and finding our sense of caring and empathy…
I’m reading The Empathic Civilization. This book found me after a long time. Time that isn’t linear. Time that is a cycle, a coming around, a dreaming, dream-time… I am reading it in the past, in the future, and now, none of which exists in any real sense, only in my mind, in a collective mind of a dominant sense of consciousness, upheld by a culture that draws a line and teaches from a young age the sense of linear time…
I am sitting in a cafe in my neighbourhood. Two people join me at my table; an older gentleman and his son, a man in his twenties perhaps, with long hair slightly disheveled. As the son goes to order food the older man, in a Scottish accent and extraordinarily politely opens up a conversation beginning with greetings of the season. I ask about his Christmas and thus ensues a conversation with both of them that sees meals consumed, and coffees, and the sun going down. My laptop gets closed and no work gets done, but a human connection is formed. We talk about geography and the environment, and the older of the two asks me about what the single thing might be that he could do that would help the environment. Give up his car? he queries. I mull on this for a while, and then say: I think the key is in relationships. It’s in fostering that sense of connection and mutual care that means we are less likely to fall into a cycle of consumption to fill some kind of void. Change, I say, will come from social movements, from people questioning the lifestyles that they are being told they need to have, lifestyles of high consumption and atomistic individuality. What will ‘save the planet’ as it were, is the breaking down of boundaries, and the opening up of relationships between people so that we develop an ever-increasing sense of being part of something bigger. Community, in all it’s many forms, community that extends further and further beyond our individualistic boundaries…
I’ve spent a few evenings over the last few days volunteering at a homeless shelter, and this has been among the best Christmasses I have ever experienced. My sense of self has been expanded, my awareness of others, my feeling of closeness and connection. It has been an experience that is difficult to describe, difficult to analyse in terms of the seeming contradiction between being around people whose circumstances are difficult and sad, and the incredibly uplifting effect of the interactions, the strong sense of community, of humanity, of human connection. I have spent hours playing games and chatting with people, no one checking their phones or rushing off to be somewhere else, or being distracted. We have sat and looked into each others eyes and talked of the deep things in life, and this has been as therapeutic and amazing for me and the other volunteers as it hopefully has been for the guests at the shelter. I have spent days mulling on this, wondering what it is that is so special about these interactions. There are many layers to it I think. A sense of doing something nice for others, as comes with most voluntary work, but also this deep feeling of listening and connecting and being, a mutual exchange, a validation of each other’s beingness, humanity…
I have been off Facebook for some months, have avoided the deluge of empty interactions that occur at birthdays and Christmas etc. Instead, this year I received one hand-written letter/card from a dear friend not spoken to and this meant more than all the brief interactions that would have happened in this online space. I write back to her, my handwriting filling two sides of a card and the back, fluidly pouring out my recent experiences, sharing a bit of my humanity in this private space. It feels like a real conversation. I find myself in this writing. There is delight in it.
As the year comes to an end, I have only one resolution and it is to foster these things that are meaningful, the connections and conversations, in person and one-to-one. Sharing the good things and the hard things, and being there for people as much as I can be, while finding my self as well and allowing myself to shine out at the world and bring joy. Joy that comes from within, a fire fed by connection, conversations, relationships, sharings…
Footnote: I have to credit a former colleague Jo Orchard-Webb for highlighting these three terms: conversations, relationships and sharing. Whilst she did so in an academic context where they seemed to sit awkwardly with a stilted scholarly environment more concerned with words and spin than with focusing on what’s really important (something I feel true to a large extent of the academic world in many ways – a discord with soul that I’ll perhaps write about more some other time), I have found them to be the most descriptive words of what seems to really matter in both a social and an environmental sense.
Human Being Natural 