ATLAS.

THE ATLAS OF OUR LIVES:

On a daily basis we read at least three articles on social media which urge us to think and behave in particular ways if you want to find meaning and happiness in life. On a daily basis, as a mental health professional, I speak to 5 people who are not in sync with their families and 5 people who are experiencing a loss of meaning in their work life.

Life in cities has made people rush, increased the ‘rate of doing’ so much that the ‘rate of being’ gets quashed. But what of living intensely, living on a small scale. By this I mean living in touch with your own surroundings, smell the mud in your own garden, if at all you have one. Something that goes along the message of this post is this poem by Shane Koyczan. https://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An4a-_NjilY

One of the videos I saw was that of Mr Suzuki (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jlyv1hCTr0), who said economics is basically brain damage. It accounts for human made reality but not what is already out there. The environment and ecosystem we were privileged enough to inherit without a will-paper.


LEGACIES AND INHERITANCE:

In the light of natural and human made disasters piling up like Christmas presents we give to our children, perhaps the urban intellectual citizen of the world needs to breathe in deeply, exhale and reflect, just for a while. Are we enjoying this chase? Does it give you a rush or a high? Does it make your family secure to have more than enough money. Does it require you to compare yourself with your neighbors each minute but not be compassionate to them? 

Fukushima will have long term effects, apocalyptic statements will arrive at your doorstep as headlines. Food will be scarce, even if you are rich. There is no escape to what we have collectively created. This was not the case when you grew up, our generation ends up spending more than ever before, and saving very little. Investment, real estate, black money, white money, we know a lot about this, perhaps more than our parents. But they were happier and more successful than us in the same age, and I am talking to 23-35 year olds here. Which is a bigger success – being happy with less money or perpetually wanting more?

This is not to say that the previous generation did not have dreams or did not work hard for them. They knew why they had the dreams and somehow the reasons I hear today don’t seem worth it.

Everyone is either planning to live till 30 only or continue living in the fantasy that they’re never going to die. To escape the past they anesthetize the present and to not think about the future, they make the excuse that they’re living in the present. Brilliant actors we are, but we only have ourselves as audience. The imaginary audiences we carry in our heads, the virtual representations of the entire world’s populations, that is a heavy burden. We work to please that image. Strangely, in our rush to please them, we are not concerned about the same people’s well being. 

I read about tribes, and cultures and “illiterate masses” who are the real educated citizens of the world. They know the place of every leaf and insect in the world. They know the value of survival of every animal they hunt, every tree they ask for timber, a way of life which respects the living and honors the dead. A culture of song, dance and eating your fill and sleeping enough. Tell me honestly, whether one among you does not have a dream of having a vacation. We came from a place in history where work was play, and playful. Where, to have peace of mind, people didn’t have to leave their homes.

So what is it that I propose to you?

Do not act as individual plants. You are a part of a forest. Expand your sense of I-ness. Your self cannot exist independently. It is a fact, not a belief system. Notice, breathe, take in the surroundings at home and work. Consider the people you see as yourself. It is an exercise in empathy. Because you are them and they are you. You share the same home called earth and air that you breathe. A research study with DNA testing revealed that everyone has genes from practically every race, you might have a cousin in the room without knowing them. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyaEQEmt5ls

And the more you chase the welfare of yourself, the more you’ll be struggling. We as people of the earth are designed to take care of each other, to have the distance and the vision to be able to see other’s problems and limitations not to take advantage of them but to care for them when they cannot see it on their own.

In sickness which is rampant, in debt which is high, in anger which surrounds us and makes us feel unsafe all the time – I find only one solution, take care of another human being’s needs if not animals or forests. Take care to not increase someone else’s misery if you can help it. Not as a value education lesson or momentary feeling good about oneself. But as a way of life.

A way of life born out of the understanding that inter-dependency is neither a luxury nor charity nor sympathy nor an ideal. Inter-dependency is a necessity, the more you propagate it as you would a religion, the better it is for the group of weird beings we call human.