There is a beauty in our common connective tissue. Even though we are distinct, each with a unique personality and purpose, we share a common ground where our perspectives overlap. We don’t always see it, distracted by the noise and busyness of life, but when the lens opens, we see something in each other that we recognize as us. In that flash of recognition, a live current flows between us, closing the gap. The current feels true.
I’m concerned that our common ground is eroding because we are losing the ability to discern what is true. When any image, video, or newsfeed can be faked, whole landscapes of reality fabricated, we become disoriented. I fear we are fragmenting from each other, reality fading into a blurry background where truth is whatever volume of opinion is shouted loudest. We risk losing the fragile beauty of our human connection, a loss that is hard to replace.
We need to step back and consciously assess how we value truth. In our chaotic times, it‘s natural that we grasp for any handhold to understand what is going on. Unfortunately, the sources of information we reach for are the ones being manipulated. Our screens have become so useful, so embedded, we turn to them instinctively, hoping they will answer our questions and our worries. There is useful information there, but it is awash in an ocean of debris. I want to stay informed, but information is not enough. I need to find the deeper currency of truth that not only guides my actions, but refreshes my humanity. For me, this means developing an inner way of knowing, a complementary faculty to fact-finding and analysis.
My first step is to step away from the screens. I try to lessen the time I spend there, not go to them reflexively when I am nervous or bored. What do I do instead? I sit. Not a formal meditation session as such, more like a parenthesis in my activity, a few minutes to sit. Just sit. It gives me a sliver of time to observe what is flowing through my mind. There is often an anxious part of me that is looking for comfort in the information-ocean on the screens. I spend time with this anxious part. I don’t tell him not to be anxious, I just spend time with him, let him know it’s okay to be here.
Many things can happen in these mini-sittings. Insights arrive on a wavelength that differs from analysis. Fresh ideas pop in. Waves of emotion swell and recede. A sense of calm settles in; fear returns, I let it be; it flows back to whatever land it came from. Given space, worries fill out their shape, revealing a paper mask pretending something fierce. And something else usually happens – the lens opens and I feel the current. I reconnect with my values. I remember I want to be a caring person more than I want to be an angry person, that most people are like me and want the best for all, that I would rather spend my time making things better than complaining about what’s bad.
Nothing is solved in these sittings, but there is a solidity, like the table under a fluttering cloth. Remembering my values reminds me how I want to act regardless of the masquerades dancing on my screen. When I feel the current, I sense I’m connecting to something old, more than just my individual perceptions and synaptic firings. I am borrowing a wisdom that we share, a medium of exchange we can bank on.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash