interconnected

What does it mean to be interconnected? Each passerby is a reflection of me, and I a reflection of them. But what does it mean to say we are all the same? My values differ, my skin differs, my face differs, my opinions differ, my education differs, the thoughts in my head differ, my heart differs. So how can it be that we are supposedly all one? I am better than the man who beats his wife. I am better than the woman on the street selling her body. I am better than the women who have altered their faces and bodies. I am better than the men who hunt animals for fun. I am better than the people who walk past the homeless. I am better than the people who remain ignorant of the problems our world faces. Clearly, I have more empathy, I am better educated, I am more understanding, kinder, better. Or am I? What does it mean to say “I”? If nothing remained of my body but my brain, and I would still consider that I, then why do I associate my body so much with “I”? See, even saying “my” body proves the point.

Okay, so then, I am my thoughts. My thoughts are me. But what happens when every single thought I’ve ever had seems to have already been repeated by millions of others? What if I have never actually had an original thought? Each thought, no matter how unique, seems to have been thought of by others. So, how can I differentiate myself from others? What about my personality? Not everyone is kind, empathetic, understanding, or open-minded. But is personality something permanent or malleable? And aren’t there thousands, if not millions, who share the exact same traits? So if there is nothing truly original about me, what meaning do I attach to “I”? There is no actual relativity to it because I am you, and you are me.

I am the baby who is screaming in her mother’s lap. I am the daughter grieving the loss of her innocence. I am the boy raised to give the world a cold shoulder. I am the woman begging for spare change to survive until the next day. I am the man who cursed at the barista for getting his order wrong. I am the people littering the ground beneath me. I am the people fighting for human rights, while simultaneously the people fighting against them. I am the child hiding from my parents, and I am the parents hurting their child.

This may seem incomprehensible and unacceptable to most, understandably so. But when you’ve lived through hundreds of lifetimes—or better said, versions of yourself—the bad, the good, the impossible, and you’ve seen the world in all its colors, you begin to realize that the world is made up of two of the strongest forces: hatred or love. Hatred is formed through division, and division is formed through the illusion that somehow we are all separate, because we have lost the compassion to understand that we are made of the same atoms, the same structures, the same inherent wisdom, the same hearts, and the same potential. Nothing tears unity like division does.

This world seems to many to be more and more unbearable, evil, hopeless, and divided. But that’s only because we let it convince us that this is so, and we fall into the trap of believing that we must fight one another, rather than unify with one another in times of chaos. So, what does it mean to be interconnected? It means that if my life had been put in the same exact circumstances—with the same family, the same trauma, the same society, the same expectations, the same opportunities—then I, too, could have ended up exactly like someone whom we, as a society, look down upon. It is easier to keep our hearts open toward those who are like us and closed toward those who aren’t, and we still call that empathy. But there is a fine line between the person I am now and the person I look down upon, that I could have also been.

I have been the bullied child. I have been the bully. I have been the ignorant person. I have been the "woke" person. I have been the extroverted person. I have been the introverted person. I have been the sinner, and I have been the judger. I have been the happy person, and I have been the depressed person. The point is, the personalities we cling to do not exist as they do now—they don’t exist at all, which means that neither do the personalities of others. They all change, they are all masks, they are all taught, and they are all chosen in response to what society has deemed acceptable.

And if all personalities are chosen, and inherently, we all share the same desire to love and be loved, then this is what makes us interlinked, and this is why differences between you and I are nothing but an illusion. Life is simply too short to spend it attached to what we deem permanent, unchangeable, or unique in ourselves. The self doesn’t exist, and this is proved by our ever-changing beliefs and ideas of the world around us. No one is holier than the other, and it is in times of need, in times of unified grief, in times of war, in times of community, that we share the inner knowing that we really are all the same. But it may be important to take one step forward and not exclude those we deem outsiders to the social norm, because at the end of the day, we, too, could have been led to the same decisions, the same lifestyles, the same cold hearts.

Just as all flowers, including those who hold different strains—some with healing properties, others poisonous, different colors, shapes, and names—are still considered flowers, we, too, are blinded by illusions of differing opinions, ideas, race, gender, traits, and intellect, somehow making us significantly different from the person next to us. It is difficult to come to terms with the idea that nothing separates us when, for our entire lives, we have been told that we are either special or broken. It is difficult to accept that humans who hurt other beings are no different from you. It is difficult to choose to accept and love others when you despise the evil some people have inside of them.

But the strongest force against evil is love, and love is unity and connectedness between mind, body, soul, earth, and all other inhabitants. This isn’t intended to come off as preachy, nor is it something I expect readers to take with them. It is simply a memoir I am choosing to share with humanity in times when love seems hopeless. There is a reason we have survived the centuries we have. It is through resilience and our shared unity in hard times that we’ve come this far. May we not forget that we are all human, all with hearts, the ability to change, to grow, and to appreciate each other as we are.

I have lived through darkness. I have lived through heaven. I have lived through limbo. But through all of these experiences, I learned one main lesson: you too could have, and still can, end up in places you never thought you would. You cannot be a sinner judging other sinners for sinning differently, as Sui Ishida once said. All you can do is accept that life is simultaneously diverse, and yet, the same, which includes the lives people lead. Ultimately, we are all part of the same exact wagon. Whether you realize it or not, we all come from the same place and will all end up in the same place.

So take from this what you’d like, but remember: unity is our strongest weapon against evil.