No One Is a Stranger
On this last day of the turbulent 2021, let’s take a moment to reflect on the reality we are waking up to as we prepare to greet 2022.
No one is a stranger to the uncertainty in which we are living and the impossibility to return to “normalcy”. Whether you are a busy consultant, a homeless migrant, a wealthy individual in your lifestyle bubble, or a young person trying to make sense of surreal global corruption and mindless ideological divisions — we are all feeling it. As we wind down 2021, we are aware of the subtle but pervasive breakdown of meaning in a world not coordinated or honest enough to address reliably its health, climate, economic and social challenges.
Reflecting on what we would like to greet in with 2022, we know on some level that profound changes are on the horizon. And there is unspoken anxiety. Even though anxiety generally gets defined as an individual problem, it is about much more. It is about the world view that created the reality we now inhabit — a world view of separateness, competition for limited resources, and physicalism, which defines reality as solely physical. Such a world view justified hierarchies that protected the interests of one group at the expense of others. It did not appreciate the interdependent web of life on our planet and endorsed unlimited consumption to the point of a quickly escalating climate crisis. This world view has created lives completely out of balance, estranged and neurotic, and a social reality, in which the majority of people have no safety. Now we know this world view no longer sustains us, nor is it really justified.
As the planet has to reorganize itself beyond limited interests in order to address its vast challenges, we face a necessary transformation in the way we think about who we are, what life is, and what ultimately matters. What ails us is that we still do not fully grasp the radical shift, in the midst of which we are living. And we see no obvious maps ahead.
Gone are the times when we grew up belonging to a particular social group and culture which provided a somewhat predictable track for our lives and a way to relate to others. In the world we now wake up to, social and cultural hierarchies have been questioned and deconstructed as one-sided and unjust. People mix and reach out to one another across old divisions more than ever, feeling on a visceral level that the old maps no longer hold. No matter how different we are in our embodiment and cultures, in our intellectual and physical capabilities, and in the ways in which we express aspirations, we are all asking fundamentally the same questions. How can this become a safer world? One in which I don’t have to fear for my children and for my livelihood each day? How can I enjoy life and give it my best, and not live in fear?
So, no matter how much the European Union repeats the post-COVID slogan, “Build back better”, that’s impossible. The only real chance we have is to “Build FORTH better” — and that means leaving no one behind, intentionally organizing around our interdependence.
New research shows that even the individual human mind is not a separate thing but an embodied and interpersonal flow of energy and information, a process which depends on the quality of our interactions with one another and with life. The more wholesome the interactions, the more wholesome the development of mind. The more transactional and expedient our interactions, the more fragmented the human mind becomes. In my first book on the development of critical moral consciousness in the lifespan, I described the motivational continuum from expediency to morally inspired choices as foundational to who we become and how full or unsatisfying we experience life.
That clearly points to a path forward. A path, consistently taught by the sages of every age. A path of organizing society, economies, education, health care, family life around universal spiritual values that apply across wisdom traditions. These values uphold the oneness of humanity in all its diversity, and the need to live in ways that honor our unity in diversity and our interdependence with all life on the planet.
So, what does that mean for you on the last day of 2021? Perhaps you can take time to reflect on all the people who crossed your path, in more or less significant ways. Perhaps you can try to remember the faces, the feeling of each encounter. Perhaps, as you open space for this reflection, you can notice yourself becoming more spacious and compassionate, quieter, more content. That’s a wonderful start.
On the first day of 2022, we will talk about what is being born out of this spaciousness within.
This essay draws on the deeper examination of these questions in my recent book, Global Unitive Healing: Integral Skills for Personal and Collective Transformation, available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Global-Unitive-Healing-Collective-Transformation/dp/1945026766/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Z19I0JOZ5GEF&keywords=global+unitive+healing+mustakova&qid=1642863077&sprefix=global+unitive%2Caps%2C86&sr=8-1
