No one talks about the loneliness. Or the insanity.
Maybe it isn't real; It feels real, but what is feeling?
A body feels.. or is it the mind? The body fades. The mind can be fooled. How can partnership, family, and community create a feeling of connectedness and also such intense isolation? Is it that we are meant to connect, and so when we don't, we 'know'? Does that mean the connectedness is actually what's real? What of the moments when one feels serene while alone... or lonely in a crowd. Connectedness to partner, to family, to community; to body, to nature, to spirit. Connectedness.
A girl grew up in a family, but never felt safe. A boy proposed to a girl, but she left. A woman married a man, but lived life alone. A man made a million, and lost a marriage. A couple had a marriage, but never a family. Connectedness, and isolation.
My mother lost a ring once - it was meant for me - I felt it viscerally, the loss. I lost my father, I didn't cry for months. He was my favorite; he's been gone three decades, his memory and legacy fading to dust, more lost than the platinum and diamond still circulating the Earth. Connectedness, and loss.
A mother chose a golden child. A brother abused a sister. A sister betrayed herself. A father drank himself to death. A woman chose a career. A husband chose a prostitute. Connectedness, and expectation.
I spent a year being tear gassed, to save my body. Mandates preventing my travel - show your code to buy a coffee! Given a scarlet "A", a modern day star of David to be worn. Prove your allegiance to society. Connectedness, and sovereignty.
A church made a promise. An officer took a bribe. A philanthropist forced himself on a young girl. A corporation poisoned the food. A family stole the banks. A government started a war. Connectedness, and power.
Speak, but only when the topic is approved; Censorship enacted. Data suppressed. Snitches compensated. Cognitive dissonance celebrated. Sales made. Lies told. Connectedness, and truth.
Living in today's world seems impossible to stay healthy; toxins in food, hormone disruptors in products. Chemotherapy commissions. Sugar payoffs, butter and statins, tobacco, seed oils and sunscreen. Metals in the skies. Misrepresentations and loopholes galore. Connectedness, and corruption.
Terrorists, nationalists, and refugees. Open the borders, arm yourself, deny the visa. Pride of nation discouraged; ignore the crime and rising costs, you racist! Cultural norms attacked, assimilate! To be together you must blend - no flavor allowed. Connectedness, and globalism.
1,000 friends, and no one to call. Condolences and prayers offered after months of ignored online pleas. Be sexy, but not a whore. Be a man, but don't show emotions. Reeks and wrecks. Screens flooding with copied individualism. Connectedness, and contradiction.
Overtaxed farmers, Davos jets. Cocaine and laptops without recompense, Africans fill private prisons for weed. #metoo movement; Epstein forgotten. All humans have value, unless you deserve the death penalty. Connectedness, and hypocrisy.
The other, the different. The Christian, the trans. The girl, the boy - the need for them to be the same, the reality of their difference. The labels and the words, the emotions behind. The attachment and obsession, the need to control, controlling. Connectedness, and judgement.
Glenda on 5th sells for $10, but Amazon has it for $9 + an add on for free shipping - total spent $14, and add on item thrown to trash. Mom and pop close shop. Local farms not sustainable, cow poop kills the Earth - food costs skyrocket, pears in Europe flown from Argentina, lab grown meat taking over; cancers on the rise. Life expectancy lower than our parents for first generation in hundreds of years. China no longer wants our trash. Mercury infested waters. Plastic in the hearts of men. Connectedness, and responsibility.
Four bedrooms, two cars, super mom - a closet alcoholic. Echo chambers, harassment by bots. Baited and beaten; consciousness lost, emotions engaged, willpower destroyed. Target acquired, mission accomplished: Journey to spirit abandoned. Connectedness, and self.
In the end, do we simply want to feel connected? Am I insane for seeing these things? Am I alone? Is the only place where I will find logic within the chaotic threads of my mind's connections? When I find those who agree, am I connected? Or placated? How does it all make sense to me - why are we fighting? In my loneliness, I wish to be together... but not with the crowd. I love the crowd, but no, I cannot stand with them.
I began in the crowd. I did not know I was there, I did not even know there was a crowd. It was humanity. But somehow I knew - because there was the 'us' and the 'them' - the other humans. But we were all part of the 'we'. How could we be together and also segmented? Because division is what drives the herd. Like cattle being corralled by dogs, or perhaps electrons in a nebulous cloud electrocuted by a mad scientist. Somewhere, somehow, I found my way to the edge. Perhaps, I was pushed; Perhaps I set out to explore. I saw those outside the circle, and became aware that we are not all connected, not in the way I had thought, anyhow. And once I left the group, I felt the immense gap of separation. The understanding of my attachments to the groups within the herd I once had. My longing to rejoin my friends, and the realization that once you're out, you don't fit back in. I had seen the other groups and also come face to face with the watery edge of the dome. To re-enter, you must deny having seen the sun, and no man emerged will willingly go back into the cave.
To connect, we must begin with self. We must become isolated, and find solace in the dark. To see, we must be in the dark and experience the light. We must adjust our eyes and get used to the cones and rods being stimulated. We must speculate and discern the sun from the flash. We must test the narrative against our body's reactions. We must become disillusioned and angered. We must delve into despair and hopelessness. We will try to call out to the herd, only to be ridiculed and reminded of our separation. We will run to the edge, pulling those on the outskirts, frantically averting the chasm that would swallow us at any moment and drag us into consternation and a looping reality of rage and false attacks, setting out to distract us from... connectedness.
We regain our footing, learning that the chasm is to be respected - as is the journey of those who may one day cross it. We adjust our strategy to making billboards and bridges, and growing wings. At a certain point, we remember being on the inside of the circle, in a time before we knew of the separation. We find the compassion - and the humility - recalling those on the edge we ourselves once shunned. We set our sights to understand and inspire. To respect and love.
We remember patience, and more than anything, we remember the journey we took and the years we walked the edge of the dome, believing it was round and never-ending, to be walked around and around until we came back to where we began - never realizing the circles we were stuck in. We recall the moment we came face to face with the glass and touched it for the first time. We remember opening the door in the sky and walking onto the set, seeing the scene for what it was. We see that only from the outside can we choose to be connected, because it is only from the outside we can see the whole: the separation and the togetherness. Connectedness.
