US VERSUS US – And Other Reflections

EXTREME MAKEOVER?
The universe is immense beyond our comprehension. Yet this vastness is reflected, literally at our fingertips. For there in a single skin cell exists another  “universe”—one of ever-smaller and smaller particles. Even an atom, which itself is a ten millionth the size of the period at the end of this sentence, is made up of components that are proving every bit as hard to count as the number of bodies in the celestial universe.

Here, at Nature’s extremes, is where perspective begins to get a little weird. As physicists venture into the realms of quarks, quasars and antimatter, they’re learning that the rules governing the concepts of not only space, but mass, time, motion and even existence are going to have to change.

It’s never the simplistic “us versus them” paradigm we’ve invented to try to make sense of complexity and manage emotions.

NEW REALITIES
Two things you might think would fall at opposite ends of a scale of time, size or space might, according to these new realities, actually lie right next to each other or even coincide. In these latitudes, large encompasses small; bad includes good; beauty has its ugly side. In everything lie the seeds of its opposite. And the astounding Intelligence that designed it all, at once everywhere and nowhere, looks on kindly as we endeavor to understand. 

So the worlds I continue to explore around, within and beyond me are ultimately the same world. It’s all one, and it’s all good—the beginnings, the endings and everything in between.

In politics, in international relations, in personal conflicts and even in war, it may just be that it’s never really about what we think it’s about. It’s never the simplistic “us versus them” paradigm we’ve invented to try to make sense of complexity and manage emotions.

Because there’s always a part of “them” in “us” and vice versa, it’s always about us.

We can learn something important both from what exists and what doesn’t exist, from things and the spaces between things, from words and silence.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
It's impossible to overstate the significance of this new understanding. The implications for those of us exploring who we are and where we fit in whole scheme of things are becoming clearer by the day:

• What happens to one person, one animal, one river, one ecosystem ultimately affects every other.

• The spiritual energy each of us produces can instantaneously change someone's reality on the other side of the world. 

• There’s always another way of looking at something, another way to experience and explore it.

 

• We can learn something important both from what exists and what doesn’t exist, from things and the spaces between things, from words and silence.

• The answer to any conflict is for both parties to understand that what they judge and fear in their enemy is a reflection of themselves.

• The solution to any of society's most daunting challenges could already be within our reach, simply awaiting a fresh perspective or a more open mind before revealing itself.

• Finally—perhaps the most important implication of all—it means there are no limits other than those we impose on ourselves. In fact, we’re only just barely separated—if at all—from the ideal, the sacred, the timeless.