More shootings. More terrorist attacks. More opinions being slung into the collective consciousness. More judgement. More blame. More division. More “I am me and you are you and I have nothing to do with you.”
Let’s just get to the fucking point, shall we? I say it incessantly in classes, workshops, lectures and retreats, but I’ll just keep on saying it until it’s understood: this moment in time will be looked back on by historians as a dark age. Why? Because even with all the channels we have of technology, of communication, of interaction and of being able to follow each other’s every breath, move, meal and vacation, one thing, ONE THING, continues to evade us.
We don’t take care of each other. We allow fear to supersede trust, we work from the default that our differences are stronger and allow those differences to motivate the pulling of a trigger, the launching of opinion into social media networks, the creation of a world where we’re divided and, essentially, killing each other.
I also constantly remind people to rise up and meet darkness with light. What that means in real terms is to somehow overcome the differences that keep us in the rigidity of “black” or “white”, “male” or “female”, “straight” or “gay”, “Christian” or “Jewish” or “Muslim”, “you” or “me.” Get over it. We are all trying to navigate our difficulties and successes, all at the same time on the same planet. All struggling. And just because the faces of those struggles looks different person to person, don’t ever doubt that the root causes are the same for us all.
Start making an effort to connect to what you’ve previously avoided or had an aversion to. Come together. Try exposure therapy. Try communicating face to face. Try.
There will be an age of enlightenment that will follow this dark age. Our work now is to not succumb to the darkness. None of this will end until we wake up and start looking after and caring for each other instead of killing each other.
Try.
As always Bram your words of wisdom are extremely powerful. My desire is the same as yours; that everyone comes together and tries.
Excellent rant Bram, love your insight! You are right, if people were to try more with their communications there would be a whole lot less hatred and unrest in the world. However, I think we also need more empathy and understanding amongst one another as well.
Thanks for the excellent blog, we will be following along!
hmm super interesting! thank you for sharing your insight, I really resonate with this, I particularly like your reference to exposure therapy, the day and age of phone screens is dehumanising the way we communicate.