Being Human

Ok, so this reflection is going to be a little more “out there” than some of my other writings. I actually wrote this on March 13 (a Friday nonetheless). Of course my thoughts and ideas have morphed and shifted to a certain degree with time, but I will type it up as I wrote it then. I think it is interesting.

“Picture yourself in—try to picture the world and all the places within it. Ok, you see a few countries, places you have been, some familiar looking people, some foreign looking people, some places you have seen on TV. Maybe you are even like me and try to circumnavigate the world in your mind; hitting every continent and trying to touch many countries along the way. But you soon realize that these are mere images; things our brains and minds have constructed based on our dreams, thoughts, ideas, books, pictures, stories, TV, a glimpse that you gained from travelling, etc. The fact of the matter is, no one can see the entire earth. Therefore, from our experiences we extrapolate. This is normal. It is not a bad thing. But here is my point. What I am realizing here in Senegal is that my world view is SO narrow. We can really only know what we have seen. Even then with memory, consciousness, and sub consciousness we further shape our own reality which gradually blurs and becomes less definite over time.
Therefore, if we have such a hard time understanding our OWN reality, how can we expect to understand that of even our loved ones. This makes trying to understand the reality of a man in rural Senegal seem quite impossible. And that is the interesting part. There are so many people on this Earth; So many consciousnesses; Billions of different ways of thinking. And while we can relate to the consciousnesses of our family, friends, neighbors, statesmen, countrymen, and Westerners a little better (if you are a westerner), there are so many people that see the world from truly different eyes. Truly different understandings of the world.
This being said, I also believe that there is a greater world consciousness; That the world is full of some sort of universal principles/forces/energies that connect all people. There have been past, there are present, and there will be future realities that connect all humans (and possibly all earthly things) on an energetic, subconscious level. Something in the spirit; something deep in the brain or in the heart. Have you ever felt that you could understand and empathize with the situation , the reality of another person / group of persons without really knowing or experiencing it? Take a fiction book. All of us have known characters close to our hearts. Why are the so close? Supposedly it is a character made up by a person whom you have never met. How can such a connection be explained? Or how can people like Steven Spielberg direct a movie like Saving Private Ryan, even though he was never in war, let alone storming the beaches of Normandy. Yes research, yes first hand accounts, but there is something even more. It is a consciousness that connects us all. Like the rising and sinking of a tide, it ebbs and flows freely between us; being strongest between the people we are closest connected to. Call it an intrinsic knowledge, morals, belief, spirituality, love; it is there and it shapes the world in which we live. We draw from the consciousness of our forefathers. But this consciousness is constantly shifting and changing.
I feel that the current consciousness (at least speaking from a western perspective) has been shaped by control, power, and selfish want beyond mere survival. And while I believe that this is still strongly the current paradigm, but that this is shifting (as it always is, has, and will be). While it is shifting on many fronts, I would like to draw attention to the biggest, most encompassing which is how we live in, interact with, and treat the world in which we live. There has been the view of take as much, use as much, exploit as much, and pollute as much because not only was nature limitless and infinitely forgiving, we were more important (in my mind, specifically, but not limited too, white westerners who have more recently degraded the planet with a power and speed never before seen). And I think that this is changing. I can see it starting to change. Person by person, action by action, standing up by standing up. The problem is, the other consciousness likes its power and is fighting to hold its power harder than ever. But that’s why every little action (as small as picking up a plastic bottle and discussing with people to as grand as going to Senegal to learn more about sustainability in Senegal, the U.S., and yourself). It is about doing all that you can do to live your life with a new environmental consciousness—every action counts. There is literally nothing too small, because every action eventually becomes repetition, becomes habit, becomes life, and has impacts upon others that stretch far and wide beyond our own comprehension.
And being here in Senegal is one reason that I have so much hope for this shift in consciousness. Here, I am mixed and intermixed within a very different culture, but at the same time there is much that is the same (and I am not just talking about materialistic things, thoughts, and ideas that are a result of globalization and the World Bank). I’m talking about being human. It’s different but it’s the same because we are human! We have fears, hopes, senses of humor, religion, sport, love (it is apparent to me that people here have a sense of a longing for someone or something where they feel that unifying connection called love). And babies. I have spent a lot of time here in Senegal with babies. They cry. They want food, their mom. They laugh. They react and interact. And their eyes…oh their eyes—you see right into their minds: their thoughts, their souls. You see personalities, you see their raw emotions. It’s human. It’s not different cultures. It’s human and it’s something so special.”