When you think you are your own separate, independent, self-made tree and not the forest, you care less when other trees are burning. This is a fatal problem of mistaken identity, colonized forgetting, and conditioned belief in your insulation from harm. You are always the forest. Indigenous ways.
– Jaiya John
We are fleeting and local expressions of this living system we call Earth, and the much larger evolving system we call the Universe or Existence.
What happens to the larger systems we are part of, as well as the smaller systems that are part of us, happens to us.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE LARGER WHOLE HAPPENS TO US
We may think that in society, what happens to others don’t harm us but it does.
We may think that harm to ecosystems and non-human beings don’t harm us, but it does.
It harms us because we are all expressions of the same dynamic living systems, and what happens to a part happens to the whole. Harm to other people, non-human beings, and ecosystems harms the web of life we are all part of, and that harms us whether we notice or not.
The larger the scale of this harm, the more obvious the harm is to ourselves, as we are seeing now with our global ecological crisis and the inevitable coming mass migrations. We are all impacted already, and it will only be more obvious.
Similarly, the more the larger systems we are part of come alive, the more we come alive.
It harms us to be complacent to or support the harm since the world is our mirror. The way we relate to the world – to others, to ecosystems, to life – is how we relate to ourselves. If we live from intolerance, scapegoating, bigotry, blame, victimhood, and so on, that’s how we treat ourselves and that’s the world we create for ourselves to live in.
If we learn to live from more kindness, curiosity, and a partnership orientation, that’s how we relate to ourselves and our experiences.
WE ARE NEVER SELF-MADE
We are never self-made. Whatever is in my life comes from somewhere else.
I grew up in a middle-class family in Norway so the road was paved for me to get a university education. I grew up with lots of books so it was natural for me to read. I grew up with a family that loved nature, so it was natural for me to love nature. Any ideas that goes through my mind comes from somewhere else, both the stressful and the more life affirming ones. My curiosity, passion, motivation and so on is not self-made, it comes from somewhere else. (I don’t know where.)
Everything in my life comes from somewhere else. My life depends on the whole evolution of this universe, this planet, humanity, and this civilization. It depends on the whole of existence.
None of this would be here otherwise.
INSULATION FROM HARM
When we live from an imagination of separation, we can also imagine we are insulated from harm when others are harmed, whether they are people, non-human beings, ecosystems, or this living planet as a whole.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The health and well-being of the whole colors our own health and well-being in innumerable ways.
Why are we collectively not doing nearly enough to deal with our global ecological crisis? This assumption of separation and insulation from harm is likely a big part of it. We think it happens over there, to someone else, to future generations. They can deal with it.
We don’t realize how it impacts us now, and how we are impacted by the destruction happening all over the world even if we tell ourselves we are not.
TRUMP AND A CULTURE OF DOMINATION
In the US today, with the election of Trump, this quote may be especially relevant. Trump wants to sell of publicly owned nature to mining and petroleum companies. He wants to reduce or eliminate regulation of industry, use and release of toxins, and release of greenhouse gasses. He wants to minimize and destroy the already flimsy social safety nets in the US. He wants to cut taxes to the already very wealthy and put the cost on ordinary people. He wants to mass deport immigrants who pay taxes and do jobs others don’t want. He wants to implement policies that harm minority groups.
This harms everyone. It harms everyone to live in this kind of “burn it all to the ground” society that does not respect human rights or the right of nature, that scapegoats and harms minorities, that removes the social safety nets that makes society safer for all of us, that encourages further destruction of our ecosystems and the life support systems we all depend on.
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
As the quote says, this is a fatal problem of mistaken identity. This mindset of “what happens to others don’t matter for me” comes from a worldview of separation and alienation. It’s very much a trauma response.
Likely beginning with the agricultural revolution, we have created an imagination for ourselves telling us we are separate from nature, we are separate from others apart from a few in our in-group, we are special and different from other forms of life, we have soul and others do not, the sacred is out there in the sky or the afterlife or a sky-god and not anymore in all beings and all there is, we understand something best by taking it apart to its smallest parts, a thought can be absolutely true, if one thought is true another is not (either-or thinking), if you pretend to believe something weird you can’t check for yourself you’ll be saved, you’ll get your reward in the afterlife so there is no need to change the system to make a better life for yourself now, and so on. These imaginations were likely created to justify the domination and social inequality that came with agriculture, and they have been developed through the centuries to continue justifying it.
This worldview, and the domination culture that comes with it, creates and depends on trauma. It creates and depends on collective and intergenerational trauma.
It is very much a primitive, barbaric, and savage worldview and culture. It’s the mindset of empire and colonialism. (The irony is that people with this mindset have traditionally seen partnership-oriented cultures, including Indigenous cultures, as just that.)
WHAT WE CAN DO
We can learn to recognize this mindset, where it comes from, and what effects it has. We can learn to see through it. We can learn to recognize it as the imagination it is.
We can also explore and explore living from more life-centered mindsets and worldviews. We can recognize ourselves as nature. We can recognize this living system we call Earth as one seamless dynamic system that we are local and fleeting expressions of. We can create and live from more of a partnership culture in ourselves and our lives.
This may not happen on a larger scale, at least not yet, but we can do it in our life and that’s amazing. It may not change the world in an obvious way, but it changes our world.