āWe are not just a skin-encapsulated ego, a soul encased in flesh. We are each other and we are the world.ā ā Charles Eisenstein
You might think when I talk about our āgenius potentialā, itās driven from a place of ego — ālook at meā¦ā.
Itās not.
It comes a from a place where I see people not as they are but as they might become — not a better version but someone who’s intent on discovering their true self.
I could be wrong but, in the process (which is best described as radical self-enquiry — see the work of Parker J Palmer), I believe they will come to see, as I have done, that we are no different to everything that exists. (Thich Nhat Hanh calls this Interbeing.)
I accept Iām going out on a limb, particularly from a Western perspective, but I donāt think myself better than any other living creature or thing. In essence, we are all one.
Even if you donāt buy this line of thinking, youād be stupid to think that we can survive without animals, flora or fauna, even the ones we donāt eat.
Some call this separation, a state where thereās āthemā and āusā or rather thereās the world we see and the world we seek. As to the latter, very few people ever stop to think of the consequences to the earth of living a consumerist lifestyle. Itās not just Nimbyism, itās simply too remote for most people to fathom that weāre slowly consuming everything on this planet, and God only knows what will be left for our children to enjoy.
In the end, by my writing and speaking, what Iām inviting is a new narrative, one informed by an acknowledgement that we should all be standing up for those with no voice, and not just the human variety. But, being the individuals we are, itās unlikely that weāre going to change our tune in the near term. If we do, itās only likely to arise when someone points out that what we took for granted has disappeared right before our eyes.