It is interesting to me that the separation which exists between us is of our own doing. We have created Nations, tribes and states as words to divide us by boundaries of our choosing or by force of power. In our personal lives we have created descriptive words that point out our differences as we perceive them. These are black, white, red and yellow for ethnicity. Tall, short, fat, skinny, ugly, beautiful, bald and others you may be all to familiar with for looks. Then there are our beliefs. These have caused so much pain and grief because we feel the need for everyone to believe the same. Right now in the world there are conflicts based on beliefs that are different.
I would appreciate others thoughts on this subject. Is there a way we might start changing these to see ourselves as the same and not different????
As my friend Bob says, we are all just shaved apes.
But we have created beauty and harmony from time to time
Let’s figure out how to keep growing in a sustainable world
If you want peace, work for justice…
How the human brain has evolved has so much to do with our sense of connection or separation. Thank you for being some of the wise ones.
Please do not dismiss the concept of separations automatically. People (and even other creatures) create separations between them for a variety of reasons. Some separations may have arisen out of spite or for reason(s) which may be insignificant in the grand scheme of things such as may be the case with some of the splintering within Christianity.
Sometimes divisions arise because people have come to an impasse. For example, Sunni and Shiite Muslims are divided because of a fundamental disagreement over where to vest authority. One camp wants to vest authority in a group of clerics who have the ability to make new laws, while the other wants to vest power solely in the written teachings of Mohammed. Both ideas have pros and cons and neither approach is obviously better than the other; hence, the people are at an impasse.
Some types of divisions also serve as (potentially) useful tools for controlling access to resources. National borders help to control access to resources AND also help to establish order. A nation is only possible with borders. If, for example, the US stopped policing its borders, there would cease to be a United States of America; there would only be a landmass over which individuals wandered. The border provides a rationale by which it is decided who pays taxes. Those taxes enable the formation of a government and the creation and maintenance of infrastructure. These things, in turn, lead to the establishment of order.