Category: Culture

Disconnected from the other

The main point about civility is…the ability to interact with strangers without holding their strangeness against them and without pressing them to surrender it or to renounce some or all the traits that have made them strangers in the first place.

—Zygmunt Bauman

The media constantly inform us about acts of terrorism, wars, people displaced by violence, refugees, famines, natural calamities, human and drug trafficking, mass lay-offs, corporations that sink overnight or merge to form larger and frighteningly powerful entities. All of these are symptoms and consequences of our disconnection as humanity.

In January 2018, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, Teresa May, created a new position, a Ministry of Loneliness. More than nine million people in the UK suffer, either occasionally or permanently, from loneliness, according to a report published by the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness. And loneliness seems, more than anything, the product of our inability to connect with others.

We’re not only isolating ourselves, we’re regrouping.

Armed with recent demographics, journalist Bill Bishop published The Big Sort:Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. (First Mariner Books, 2009). When he looked at the electoral results of the last thirty years, he observed that Americans have grouped by class, skin color, and beliefs in increasingly homogeneous communities. This has happened not only at the region or state level, but by city and even neighborhood. His data has been confirmed by other reporters, such as Corey Lang and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz of the UK,[1] who also predict that this tendency toward segregation will be generalized along party lines. People are choosing neighborhoods (and churches and news programs) that are compatible with their lifestyles and beliefs. This type of grouping prevents the new generations from being exposed to different opinions and views of the world. The phenomenon is happening throughout the nation. For example, in rural West Texas, a fifty-acre community development  (Paulsville) was created in 2008 to provide homes exclusively for followers of then libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Bill Bishop suggests that the outcome of this trend has been a notoriously dangerous polarization of the population, a decline in tolerance, and an increase in extremism.

Facebook designs algorithms that select what’s displayed in my wall and shown to my friends and family. Other algorithms will get me to see more posts from people who think like me and fewer from those who have different opinions, or more personal comments and pictures, than any political news I’d like to share. My followers and the people who like or click on my posts back my opinions, but my posts rarely reach those who think differently. The balkanization of social media or splinternet––meant to block, filter, or redirect certain topics––causes us to live in separate microcosms, with narrower visions. It denies us the opportunity of enriching ourselves with differing ways of seeing the world. It has become a political instrument to perpetuate power in the hands of a few.

In a sociopolitical climate of constant change, corruption in the highest spheres, mutual distrust, and unrelenting competition, we feel easily judged, criticized, and excluded. This also constitutes an obstacle when trying to connect with others. I distrust others because I suspect they want what I have (my money, my partner, my position at work, my influence). Since others have abused me in the past, betrayed me, abandoned me, rejected me, I can’t expect otherwise. In the midst of this mistrust, I keep my guard up. I don’t show my vulnerability. I choose not to connect with those different from me but to group with like-minded people. The paradox is that vulnerability actually connects us, humanizes us. We need to change the paradigm that the intellect is what makes us strong. True strength doesn’t come from our physical bodies and brains, which inevitably deteriorate, but from experiences and feelings that eventually make us capable of empathy and prompt our indignation about social injustice or ignorance and ambition. We all have a soft side, and that’s just fine. We are yin; we are yang.

[1] The LSE US Centre’s daily blog on American Politics and Policy (online).

Disconnected from our bodies

Not only have we progressively disconnected from each other and the planet, we’ve also stopped listening to our bodies. We’ve forgotten how to lead a rhythmic life. We don’t eat when we’re hungry, but when the food is available or when it’s noon. We don’t sleep when tired; that’s what caffeine is for. We turn off symptoms with medication, instead of trying to understand their roots. In addition, we’ve lost body wisdom. Our gardens are more for adornment than for receiving our daily dose of sun or for planting trees that purify our air. Instead of exposing our skin to the sun, which would transform skin tocopherols into vitamin D, we take a supplement. Instead of drinking orange juice, we look for vitamin C capsules. If something upsets our stomach, we just take an antacid or digestive enzyme instead of eliminating from our diets the foods causing problems.

We’ve also stopped trusting the wisdom of the body, no longer listening to its inner healer. We believe that our doctor is the expert in our own body, and we allow specialists to manage our health. I often see patients unable to decide on a course of action because what reason prescribes goes against what their heart, their instinct, or their dream shout. Society (which strongly echoes the parental voices lodged in your mind) sometimes prevents you from seeing the red flags or advising you about what’s best for you. We end up not doing what our hearts and souls really need and want.

I believe three types of disconnection (from the body, from others, and the planet) are interrelated and lead to deficiencies in our ability to nurture ourselves, love our neighbors, and protect and preserve the environment.

Development (a misnomer) has given rise to the adoption of new values, which have a clear detrimental impact on the evolution of the individual and the culture, and are very different from the knowledge of our ancestors, who recognized the need to preserve, honor and care for the planet. But we still call ourselves civilized.

This divorce we have created is based on an illusion. In 1973, in his essay “The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective,” the astrophysicist and author of Cosmos, Carl Sagan said, “Our sun is a second- or third-generation star. All the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes, were produced billions of years ago in the interiors of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff.”

The still-predominant reductionist paradigm feeds the perception of separation from our surroundings, including other people, and convinces us that we’re merely individual beings, divided, segments. We’ve fooled ourselves into denying we’re all stardust and that what I do to you I’m doing to myself too, that what I do to the planet affects me.

Fortunately, we’re coming to understand that reductionist science, which until recently we thought irrefutable, is questionable and that we’re enrichened by the adoption of more holistic, systemic, and comprehensive perspectives. Holon means complete, total. A multidimensional and holistic perspective of health, disease, education, politics, and our relationships with others and with the world goes beyond what current science could even now explain (measure or corroborate).

Adopting a holistic approach can transform our relationship with our bodies and the environment. If we were more open to ancient cultures, we’d see that Buddhists, Taoists, and Hindus offer us invaluable pearls of wisdom, treasured for generations, and with a universalist perspective. They teach us, for example, that a frugal, moderate discipline and lifestyle, a conscious existence (monitoring our minds), can keep us physically, emotionally and mentally healthy and is good for the planet. The four Buddhism’s components of love are joy, compassion, equanimity, and benevolence, which allow us to connect with others and the environment from a kinder heart.

The Bible also preaches frugality, which some people may interpret as paying less for stuff. The real meaning is having less (only what’s necessary), avoiding waste, and not allowing our happiness to depend on what we own. This is also good for the planet.

In psychology and social sciences, we’re also approaching a more down-to-earth vision of love and relationships, an understanding that individuals can connect with others without exposing themselves to be hurt.

I will be able to take responsibility for my feelings and experience joy in relationships as long as I can fully express my essence and be myself in the presence of another. It makes all the difference in the world if I learn that it’s healthier to choose a companion, friend, neighbor, colleague, or family member who won’t judge me and in front of whom I don’t need to hide my feelings or thoughts or appearance in order to be loved. In other words, if I learn to be with people capable of accepting me as I am, who love me because of who I am. And if I make a mistake and choose a wrong pal, if someone mistreats me and becomes a toxic presence in my life, it’s also important to know that the fairest and healthiest thing to do is to get away.

It might not be necessary to know why or when our instinct and intuition got clouded, or when or why our human relationships became utilitarian, or how we came to have a minimal or neglectful relationship with nature. But it’s crucial to overcome this rift between us and our bodies, between us and our neighbors, between us and our planet. It’s critical to regaining the natural wisdom through which we keep our inner healer attuned.

How could love and solidarity prosper in a competitive and polarized world where it’s become so difficult to bridge the gap between us and those who don’t think, live, feel, or vote like me?

Disconnected…

Walls and borders…

We spend most of our lives disconnected!

As the founding executive and director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts medical school, Jon Kabat Zinn Ph.D. would probably say:

We are disconnected from our sensations, disconnected from our perceptions, disconnected from our impulses, disconnected from our emotions, disconnected from our thoughts, disconnected from what we say and also disconnected from our bodies.

And this seems to be due to the fact that we are constantly mired in worries, lost in the mind, absorbed in our thoughts, obsessed with the past or the future, immersed in our plans and driven by our desires, confused by our need to have fun and at the expense of our expectations, fears and desires, however unconscious and automatic they may seem.

Disconnected from the planet

The world is becoming increasingly polarized, our awareness of separation grows and the spending habits we have adopted disregard the responsibility we have with caring for the planet. Our fall from paradise –as a metaphor– seems to refer precisely to the beginning of this disconnection from nature that happened when humans transition from hunter-gatherer societies to become shepherds (Abel) and farmers (Cain). With the progress of agriculture, private property, States, armies and a new type of relations between men and women soon appear.

In a world progressively displaced towards urban life[1], we not only have we lost the acuity of our senses but our instinct and intuition. Let’s take the example of a hunter: he has to learn to listen to the animal that stealthily approaches, identifies the marks it has left on the ground, refine his ear to identify where a sound comes from. He needs to be able to see, feel the signs that his prey leaves on the road. In his job as a hunter, the individual needs a type of sight that would allow him to identify a target at a great distance and pursue it with his eyes. This refinement of his intuition, of his senses, of his abilities, makes him a more efficient hunter. We have lost instinct and intuition. The sharpness of our senses has deteriorated. We rely on external gadgets or additaments to make up for the loss of our senses.

Our disconnection from nature in modern life is such that we are unable to anticipate the impact that material “progress” has on our lifestyle, health, others and the planet from which we derive our sustenance. When we eat a hamburger we can’t see the relation between its fat content and the damage that a diet rich in lipids can produce on our immune system, and eventually the arteries, which years later could increase the risk of suffering a heart attack or an embolism. We only perceive the immediate gratification.

The news tells us about global warming, melting glaciers, increasing temperatures of the oceans. In the summer of 2017, the largest iceberg in the world split up from Antarctica and in 2018 the northeastern United States was hit by heavy storms of ice, rain, and snow that apparently originated in the Arctic warming (this year began to melt early, in February). We know that sea levels are rising and the coastal cities in the Gulf of Mexico and the islands north of the Caribbean have been affected by more intense hurricanes and tornadoes than ever. We witness more earthquakes, devastating fires (related to droughts), endangered species, toxic algae blooms, all phenomena of unprecedented intensity[2]. The key question is whether these occurrences are a consequence of human activity or not.

One of many examples we could offer about the disconnection between our lifestyle and the impact we cause on the planet is how comfortable we get to feel with the practice of buying products packed in plastic because (we shrug the shoulders) we can throw the container in recycling bins. But do we question where this waste is going? Much of the plastic that we throw away has to be transported (with a high fuel use) to the recycling centers. But also, the recycling process itself consumes energy or in many cases the plastic ends up being transported throughout the world[3]in huge tankers that leave a trail of lethal oil in the water, to be later deposited in batches on Third World countries fields[4]. And, what will happen to objects made of recyclable material when their use-value ends?

Another example of our disconnection: the Pacific Ocean draws approximately ten metric tons of plastic fragments to the beaches of the Los Angeles, California area. Birds, turtles, seals and other marine animals confuse plastic debris with food (their smell and appearance deceive them) and the animals can die from malnutrition, chemical poisons in the plastic or intestinal obstruction. In some cases, they get stuck or entangled in objects such as fishing nets. Can you guess where all that plastic comes from? The lack of regulation of certain industrial processes (production, waste disposal) is also responsible for both pollution and the consequences of the presence of plastic in the environment.

The United Nations has issued a resolution that seeks to eliminate plastic in the oceans in 200 countries, but they estimate that the task will take at least thirty years when it may already be too late (at present, about 115 marine species are affected by plastic debris). Presently, countries like Spain do not know what to do to dispose of the millions of plastic bottles that are thrown away every day. From the moment I write to the moment you’ll read this, it’s very likely the statistics will be worse. However, markets are still filled with plastic containers that we sometimes have no option but to buy and take home (shampoos, alcohol, medicines, all come in plastic bottles).

There is consensus in the scientific community (expressed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC for its acronym in English) that human activity is modifying the atmosphere and affecting the planet. But legislators, the president of the United States, and many media still doubt these conclusions and are even reversing the advances made in the protection of the environment. The interests of large corporations, which are not willing to bear the costs of re-engineering, necessary to prevent future emissions of greenhouse gases, are behind this problem.

The careless appropriation and abuse of resources and mindless consumerism ignores the impact we’re having on the planet. Add the use we make of fossil fuels or the waste that we generate. In the main cities of countries like the United States, up to forty percent of the food that is produced is dumped and as long as the water continues to flow in the tap we will not realize the consequences of the insensible waste of water and wood, resulting from the expanding urban population.

The media also constantly inform us about acts of terrorism, wars, people displaced by violence, refugees, famines, natural calamities, human and drug trafficking, mass dismissals, corporations that sink overnight and others that are they amalgamate to form huge and all-powerful corporations. Symptoms and consequences of our disconnection as humanity.

Next: Disconnected from our bodies

[1] Urban population in 2014 constituted the 54 percent of the global population while in 1960 it was a 34 percent, and it continues to grow.
[2] In just a month (August-September 2017) three hurricanes, Harvey in Texas, Irma in Florida and María in Puerto Rico cause immense damages (calculated in 500 billions of dollars). Damages caused by Maria are considered the worst disaster ever registered in Dominica. At the same time, the very dry summer came with fires that affected 10.000 buildings and houses and 47,000 acres in 2017. New fires are ongoing.
[3] China recently banned the imports of foreign waste (they were recycling but the waste received was not properly sorted out). The U.S., Europe and Japan are having trouble finding an alternative. The European Union is considering a tax on plastics and some countries have started to ban the use of plastic bags, cups, plates, straws, and plastic bottles. To give you an idea of the dimension of the problem: They have estimated that around 4.73 billion plastic cups are thrown away every year only in France.
[4] I hesitate in using the term Third World, which was coined in the fifties and might mean something completely different now. However, I’ll use it to designate the group of countries that are less developed technologically and where the living conditions, health indicators and income of most of the population is the least favorable.

The power of meditation

Osho understood freedom and the illusion of freedom very well.

“The freedom from something is not true freedom.
The freedom to do anything you want to do is also not the freedom I am talking about.
My vision of freedom is to be yourself.”

One of my favorite gurus is Osho… a controversial figure. He dared speak his truth. He blurted blistering opinions on almost anything from the medical establishment, to corporations, to schooling, to meditation. He was a witness to the fusing of two worlds, the West and the East, a merging he deemed necessary because he didn’t think the split characterizing the world would help us go forward.

We often call the Western societies, “the free world,” but this is just a sweet chimera. Half of the world has been and continues to be under more or less obvious oppressive regimes. This has been going on for centuries. And the West… well, just look at the media reports on NSA surveillance, the New York Times’ report unveiling the AT&T deal with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, to which it has provided with 26 years of phone call records. Privacy has gone through the drain. And without privacy, can we really talk of freedom?

In Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, a compilation of nearly 5,000 hours of Osho’s recorded talks, we learn not only about his life but also about the importance he gave to meditation.

Meditation, he said, is the only thing that can give us freedom. It will free us of the mind.

Psychoanalysis and psychosynthesis, he said, work on the mind and make us more conscious of the mind. Instead, meditation makes us observe the mind and to the extent we stop identifying with it, we transcend. Transcendence IS freedom.

Osho encourages dynamic meditation and practicing it alone…if you feel comfortable with it. The group, according to Osho is for people who have grown uncomfortable with their egos. They can “dissolve” into the group and forget about their egos for a while.

Meditation has been transformative for me. It does change the way we experience the world.