Our language comprises 26 letters. With those letters we compose our words. We group those words into sentences to say anything.
Like different words formed from the same letters, humans are made of the same elements as nearly all other life: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, calcium, hydrogen, phosphorus, and some others in small amounts. We contain within us no special material differences; there is nothing about our material constituents that separates us from other life.
And yet we are different.
I remember a fad in middle school being the drawing of the yin-yang symbol in class notebooks. I thought it was a cool symbol, and I thought there was esoteric meaning there that the cool kids really understood. Though still not a cool kid, I think I'm finally starting to grasp it.
Yin and Yang - agency and communion. Individualism and participation. "How can I be both my own wholeness and a part of something larger, without sacrificing one or the other?"*
Water comprises two elements: hydrogen and oxygen. The two alone are useful gases in their own right, but combine a couple hydrogens with an oxygen in H20 and we've got "a transformation that results in something novel and emergent."*
While I've been sitting to meditate the last few weeks, that voice nearly always pops up at some point during the 30 minutes to loudly question whether meditation is worth anything. The biggest insight I've gotten out of my meditation practice recently is the clarity that I am both an individual and a part; experiencing a perfect balance between those two, while usually fleeting, alone makes the effort and time worth it.
I am an individual aiming for personal satisfaction and fulfillment /// I am a part of the global network of life aiming for collective satisfaction and fulfillment.
I'm a word in the story of life: whole and complete on my own, yet part of a bigger story.
* Quotes taken from Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution by Ken Wilbur.
Like different words formed from the same letters, humans are made of the same elements as nearly all other life: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, calcium, hydrogen, phosphorus, and some others in small amounts. We contain within us no special material differences; there is nothing about our material constituents that separates us from other life.
And yet we are different.
I remember a fad in middle school being the drawing of the yin-yang symbol in class notebooks. I thought it was a cool symbol, and I thought there was esoteric meaning there that the cool kids really understood. Though still not a cool kid, I think I'm finally starting to grasp it.
Yin and Yang - agency and communion. Individualism and participation. "How can I be both my own wholeness and a part of something larger, without sacrificing one or the other?"*
Water comprises two elements: hydrogen and oxygen. The two alone are useful gases in their own right, but combine a couple hydrogens with an oxygen in H20 and we've got "a transformation that results in something novel and emergent."*
While I've been sitting to meditate the last few weeks, that voice nearly always pops up at some point during the 30 minutes to loudly question whether meditation is worth anything. The biggest insight I've gotten out of my meditation practice recently is the clarity that I am both an individual and a part; experiencing a perfect balance between those two, while usually fleeting, alone makes the effort and time worth it.
I am an individual aiming for personal satisfaction and fulfillment /// I am a part of the global network of life aiming for collective satisfaction and fulfillment.
I'm a word in the story of life: whole and complete on my own, yet part of a bigger story.
* Quotes taken from Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution by Ken Wilbur.
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