There is this idea of a thing called the "Collective Unconscious", which was introduced by a psychiatrist named Carl Jung in the early 1900's. I find it fascinating. He proposes that there is this idea of a personal unconscious, which is a sort of reservoir of experience that is unique to each individual. It's that weird, underlying place in your brain that is responsible for things like dreams and deja vu and those gut reactions that who knows where they come from. Then, he says, there is also a collective unconscious, which is NOT unique to individuals but is inherent in all of us and is, at it's base level, universally the same in all of us. So he's saying that for all people (or things with souls, if you want to go there), there is a collective sameness in our psyches...that maybe, underneath our individuality and all the nuances that make us unique people, we've all got the same baseline thoughts and motivations and survival strategies. It's like a giant invisible cord or web that connects every person on the planet. I love it. I love individuality and I love diversity and I love that all humans are made of basically all the same parts...2 eyes, 2 ears, a nose, a neck, two legs....but the subtle differences in the way those things are put together make us all look completely different. I find that amazingly beautiful. So different and so much the same.
Then some spiritual teachers go even further than the idea that we're all linked by a similar nature. They go to the point of saying that at the most basic part, we are all exactly the same. Seven billion people. We are all exactly the same. There is only one of us here on this planet.
I have no idea if I agree with that idea or not. I don't need to agree or disagree but I think it's a beautiful concept. To be able to look at another person and instead of focusing on the things that are different about us, the things that we disagree on, to decide that in fact, you are not separate from me. That would make all the difference....for all of us, I think.
In her book, My Stroke of Insight, Jill Bolte Taylor writes about her experience having a stroke and describes what it was like to be functioning with only the right hemisphere of her brain. And she was a neuroscientist, so she has a really interesting perspective. Anyway, in the book she says this, "As members of the same human species, you and I share all but one hundredth of one percent of identical genetic sequences. So biologically, as a species, you and I are virtually identical to one another at the level of our genes. And there's only one hundredth of one percent difference, and that is what makes all the difference." That emphasis is mine but SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, all we can focus on are the minuscule things that make us different?
I've been going through some massive life changes lately. I'm learning about a billion new lessons daily, and I honestly realize the older I get, the less I really know. And that makes me a much better person. Some lessons come the hard way and some of them float nicely into my consciousness without too much struggle. But I'll tell ya what, the process of becoming a more authentic version of oneself is a painful process. Showing up and being real and allowing myself to be seen, really seen by people feels terrifyingly brave on a minute by minute basis. But it is necessary in order to have life, to be fully alive, to be LIVING instead of just NOT DYING. But it's raw and it's scary and to everyone else, a person being more authentic can just look different. You're acting differently, you're speaking differently, you're existing differently. And those things are scary because most of us surround ourselves with people who are mostly the same as we are. There's comfort in that, and it's not only societal, it's human nature.
I certainly have no answer for how to solve this problem. I'm not even sure that I'm suggesting it IS a problem...it's just how things are. But here's what I am suggesting: Love covers differences. Love stands in the gaps; those minuscule gaps that we train ourselves and our kids to see and to enlarge into barriers. And I'm not talking about love that floats out in space as this happy little conceptual idea. That kind of love says "Sure, I love you, as a feeling or a thought, but I don't really know how to love you, how to speak to you, how to show up, so I'm going to keep a safe distance". That doesn't cover differences, it's a response to differences and there's not a lot of vulnerability there. I'm talking about hands-on, feet in the trenches, dirty face, actual, practical, active love. That kind of love says, "I will do life with you. I will hear you out and I won't judge. Instead I'll use my energy to show compassion and meet your needs". And I think that's the only way we'll ever be able to know the hearts of the people who look or behave or believe differently than us. This is not a new or earth-shattering idea. I'm not that smart. It's been around for thousands of years and brilliant people have been teaching it since teaching was a thing. Buddha wasn't a Buddhist. Jesus wasn't a Christian. Muhammad wasn't a Muslim. They were teachers who taught love.
Brilliant.
Love was their religion.
And if those three met each other today, I think they'd sit down together at a rustic farm table, pour out some Guiness or some fair trade tea, and notice each others differences. They would notice, they would respect, and they would love. Hell, they might even TALK OPENLY about their differences. Horror of horrors. Love would stand in the gaps. What an outrage. And that would be their common ground...outraging those around them by having the audacity to actively love people who are different. Gosh I want to be their friend.
This feet-in-the-trenches love is something that I've never been good at. Like I said, it requires vulnerability and that's not something that I've ever been comfortable with but I'm trying it out for the first time. And guess what? It's not killing me! It's opening me up and I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the discovery that hey, there's only one of us here. There is no separation between you and I. We're the same. We're a couple of spirits trying to navigate our way through a rough world and we're both just doing our best. Cheers to that. To individuality and to the blessed sameness.
Ps...I'm also grateful for the bravery of these girls and their words. Crushing the differences and robbing stereotypes of their power. Amen.
