Interconnection and Interdependence
This is not a new idea. Ancient religions like Hinduism and Buddhism posited the interconnection between all beings. Interconnection implies interdependence. It may be an understanding left over from ancient wisdom. But hundreds of years of scientific inquiry seems to confirm the complex ways in which all things are interconnected and interdependent. We may be able to think of interconnection and interdependence as the DNA of reality, the twin pillars of the double helix of the fabric of the universe. One can’t make sense without the other. They come together.
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To get at the most simplistically visceral feeling of this, take a deep breath of air. Feel it and think. Feel the oxygen absorbed in your lungs and transferred to your bloodstream, as it sustains your life. Feel that connection with everything else that has ever breathed, with the plants that photosynthesized sunlight and CO2 to create the oxygen without which you cannot live. And then release the air. Who will breath it next?
Next, feel your clothing (if you are wearing clothing). Perhaps it is plant fiber, like cotton or tencel. Maybe it is animal fiber, like wool. Or, maybe it is synthetic, like polyester or nylon. Feel its texture between your fingers, noting that it too came from a plant or an animal that ate plants, or petrochemicals derived from fossilized life forms that either were plants or animals that ate plants, millions, maybe billions of years ago. Feel the connection with the past lives that make everything in your life possible. Where will this fabric go next?
Take a sip of fresh water. Feel its wetness on your tongue and its flowiness as it passes down your throat to make up approximately 60% or your body. Ponder its origin beyond the sink or the bottle or the pipes or the reservoir. Did it come from a river? A lake? A well? How did the water get to that source? Is it glacial melt water? From a spring? An aquifer? How far did it travel before getting to you? Where else has it been? Whose body has it been in before yours, as it goes through the stages of the water cycle? Where or to whom will it go next?
Walk outside and feel the sun on your skin, even if it is cold. Feel the radiant energy that makes all processes possible on this planet and the others in our solar system. Imagine the hydrogen atoms fusing into helium that generates energy emanating from 93 million miles away to the surface of your skin. Realize you are solar powered by energy created at the dawn of the universe. Where will your energy go after leaving you?
Eat a snack. Maybe it is a vegetable or came from one. Does it give you fiber or carbohydrates to power your cells? Maybe it is an animal or from one. Does it give you protein that becomes the building blocks of your cells? Or fat that becomes stores of energy? Maybe it has ionic minerals like potassium or sodium that enable your neurons to build up electrical charges, fire, and coordinate with your sensory organs to help produce what we experience as consciousness. Can you see? Can you hear? Taste? Smell? Feel tactile stimuli? Can you think? Can you understand the near infinite complexity of your own existence and of everything that had to occur to make your existence possible?
Can you feel your own interconnection and interdependence with the world (nay, universe) around you? And not only your connection but the connections between all other things in that universe. You are everything, everything is you. Everything is everything.