To put it simply, connection is key. It’s likely you have heard that before. An underlying tone to almost all major religions, theologies, philosophies and the like, connection is a theme. On thinking about this connection I came to the conclusion that once connection is the goal, everything else just falls into place and its manifestation is individual. What I mean, to put it simply, is that for example, love is not the answer; it is merely a part of the answer. It is well established that one must be the message they want to see in the world, this has been said by many in many different ways. How can a goal like connection be accomplished without some basic things such as forgiveness, love, compassion, open-mindedness compromise and understanding to name a few? It is very easy to see through simple observation those people who incorporate these things into their lives and hence their message as well as those people who do not.
Not everyone has the goal of connection in mind or seek to connect only with people who think the same way they do which proves unfulfilling as it tends to keep perspective rather limited. For some the goal is to make more money, to be more successful, to be famous, to be an "expert" in something or in everything, to know. Knowing a thing is only the first step though, acting on what you know is another, and we’ve heard that before too. Taking action, making choices, that’s acquiring experience, and experience is what takes the knowing, the knowledge, and turns it into wisdom. Often, observation alone is all that is needed. There is much that is easy to learn, much that is difficult and the situations we choose that take us to the places we personally need to be in order to learn the things we personally need to learn are different for everyone. There are no shortcuts, no exceptions and no two people will get there the same way. There is individuality to it, ego offers an excellent distraction here by the way, whether it's being fed by behavior or by blame it gets a lot of attention.
But to stay on topic, think of the cave where one goes into the darkness alone to face fear, yet another ever present distraction which some folks pay out to or make copious amounts of money exploiting. Fear is as prevalent a concept as connection, or more so, just as in the medical profession there’s money to be made off of people fighting dis-ease, there’s also money to be made off of people fighting fear and in both instances there's more money to be made keeping people sick, not making them better. The money is in the promise of it getting "fixed" it's hope for sale. In some other cave or perhaps somewhere within are things that are innate, intuitive, if we are open enough to remember. We all take precisely as long as we are meant to in reaching the conclusion that connection is the goal, we all take the rest of our lives being our message and hopefully improving that connection.
We live in a world that is constantly in flux, this makes it impossible to ever know everything, with luck we end up knowing the things we need to know though. The things we need to create forward movement and perpetual transformation and growth toward connection. Not just with people who think the exact same way we do, what a boring world that would be with no one to learn from or to teach, since the two go hand in hand. In a constantly changing and evolving world, we need to be able to change and evolve. If connection is the goal and we change and evolve toward creating it, we are doing what we are meant to do. It isn’t simple and it isn’t always rainbows, roses and daisies. Think of nature, nature is a system just as we are, but nature doesn’t allow itself to be distracted, it just is, roses and daisies or decay and rot, it just is. That brings to mind another theme, to just be or “be the change,” whatever resonates, whatever makes your web hum.
Think of spider webs, not just one but hundreds of them all linked together, as a metaphor for connection. The result is the linked webs altogether, a giant network, some extend this web into a way of seeing the internet, the world-wide web. Each linked web is made by an individual spider or user, as would be the case with the internet. We are the spiders weaving our webs to connect. In the end, the bottom line will be the connection, the single web disappears into the network and how it was made isn’t the point, whether the weaver of the web had a nice house or a great job or was famous or rich or even a guru isn’t the point. Distraction is the biggest diversion from connection. There are necessary and unnecessary distractions and the biggest part of the distraction is often the personal choices we make with regard to how long we decide to be distracted.
Organized religion, science or various self-help movements are good examples of distractions as well. They can be good as pursuits of knowledge, good things can come from tapping those parts of the web. Of course there are others, there are as many distractions as one can create in their own mind, so imagine getting distracted by the mind of someone else. While those other minds might offer some guidance, ultimately you still have to use your own mind and heart. At the end of the day, you have to weave your own connection to the web. You have to choose which distractions are necessary or unnecessary and you choose how long it takes you to move forward from them just as you choose responsibility for setting an example by being your message as well as delivering it. Do you deliver your message by saying it's the best or one "true" way? Do you berate others? If so, there's a pretty good chance no one is listening.
We have all felt connection at some point in our lives whether we acknowledge that or not. It’s in those moments, the ones that are seemingly serendipity or resonance or whatever you want to call it. Acknowledge the feeling, don’t get distracted by it and it will grow. It’s different for everyone but you know it when you feel it. It’s like listening to a river while meditating. First the surface water, swirling around, the high end sound. Next the current itself, and that is where the voices start, sounds like a million voices all at once, a little chaotic if you let individual ones distract you too much. None is too high pitched or high end, none is low end or bass. It’s all middle, blended. Finally the bass note, the foundation, the gurgle from the great beneath. It's a deeper sound, grounding, like the way a drumbeat can pull back your attention it focuses and all the voices disappear into Om.
But to stay on topic, think of the cave where one goes into the darkness alone to face fear, yet another ever present distraction which some folks pay out to or make copious amounts of money exploiting. Fear is as prevalent a concept as connection, or more so, just as in the medical profession there’s money to be made off of people fighting dis-ease, there’s also money to be made off of people fighting fear and in both instances there's more money to be made keeping people sick, not making them better. The money is in the promise of it getting "fixed" it's hope for sale. In some other cave or perhaps somewhere within are things that are innate, intuitive, if we are open enough to remember. We all take precisely as long as we are meant to in reaching the conclusion that connection is the goal, we all take the rest of our lives being our message and hopefully improving that connection.
We live in a world that is constantly in flux, this makes it impossible to ever know everything, with luck we end up knowing the things we need to know though. The things we need to create forward movement and perpetual transformation and growth toward connection. Not just with people who think the exact same way we do, what a boring world that would be with no one to learn from or to teach, since the two go hand in hand. In a constantly changing and evolving world, we need to be able to change and evolve. If connection is the goal and we change and evolve toward creating it, we are doing what we are meant to do. It isn’t simple and it isn’t always rainbows, roses and daisies. Think of nature, nature is a system just as we are, but nature doesn’t allow itself to be distracted, it just is, roses and daisies or decay and rot, it just is. That brings to mind another theme, to just be or “be the change,” whatever resonates, whatever makes your web hum.
Think of spider webs, not just one but hundreds of them all linked together, as a metaphor for connection. The result is the linked webs altogether, a giant network, some extend this web into a way of seeing the internet, the world-wide web. Each linked web is made by an individual spider or user, as would be the case with the internet. We are the spiders weaving our webs to connect. In the end, the bottom line will be the connection, the single web disappears into the network and how it was made isn’t the point, whether the weaver of the web had a nice house or a great job or was famous or rich or even a guru isn’t the point. Distraction is the biggest diversion from connection. There are necessary and unnecessary distractions and the biggest part of the distraction is often the personal choices we make with regard to how long we decide to be distracted.
Organized religion, science or various self-help movements are good examples of distractions as well. They can be good as pursuits of knowledge, good things can come from tapping those parts of the web. Of course there are others, there are as many distractions as one can create in their own mind, so imagine getting distracted by the mind of someone else. While those other minds might offer some guidance, ultimately you still have to use your own mind and heart. At the end of the day, you have to weave your own connection to the web. You have to choose which distractions are necessary or unnecessary and you choose how long it takes you to move forward from them just as you choose responsibility for setting an example by being your message as well as delivering it. Do you deliver your message by saying it's the best or one "true" way? Do you berate others? If so, there's a pretty good chance no one is listening.
We have all felt connection at some point in our lives whether we acknowledge that or not. It’s in those moments, the ones that are seemingly serendipity or resonance or whatever you want to call it. Acknowledge the feeling, don’t get distracted by it and it will grow. It’s different for everyone but you know it when you feel it. It’s like listening to a river while meditating. First the surface water, swirling around, the high end sound. Next the current itself, and that is where the voices start, sounds like a million voices all at once, a little chaotic if you let individual ones distract you too much. None is too high pitched or high end, none is low end or bass. It’s all middle, blended. Finally the bass note, the foundation, the gurgle from the great beneath. It's a deeper sound, grounding, like the way a drumbeat can pull back your attention it focuses and all the voices disappear into Om.