Connections

Every day, I watch the shifting masses of people around me, and I see some of them dealing with things that are lifechanging, crippling.  Major events pass through the lives of my colleagues, my friends.  I see and hear of things in places where I don't know a single soul.  People react to each other and to the events that beset them and those near them in ways that puzzle me.

Why don't we connect to each other better than we do?  Why are we seemingly so eternally so separated from each other?   I don't think the other species that we think of as "lower animals" are.  They seem aware of each other when another one of their kind is in distress or pain.  Depending on what sort of creature they are and how they are hardwired, they react in compassion and support or by attacking at those times, but they don't seem to be oblivious, walking by each other encased in little spheres of self-absorption or deliberate obtuseness.  If we're supposed to be the pinnacle of awareness and processing, how is that we so often miss all the little signs and signals when they're present?

This has been on my mind quite a bit today.  I have a couple of theories.  The first theory is that we are so inundated with woe that we build protective shells to keep it from dragging us under.  We block out to survive because we start to think we have to do that, that it's somehow necessary.  We are not unaware; we've simply built up a callus, a protective layer to keep our own hearts from being rubbed raw on the rough surface of life.

That theory might work, but I suspect another factor is at work, too.  If we don't see the pain in others, if we put our little hands over our little eyes and press down really, really tightly, then we're off the hook for giving assistance.  It's the old image of three monkeys sitting in a row, eyes covered, ears covered, mouth covered, all evil shut out.  It takes time and effort, resources both tangible and drawn from the wells of the heart to meet the needs of someone who is hurting, and in a world that is careless and rushing, demanding and brutal, the temptation too often is to cross to the other side of the road and pray that somebody else comes along to do the job.

So we gain a little measure of temporary breathing room.  So we don't have to carry that person's darkness or sorrow with us as we go.  We slip the "trap" and tell ourselves we've escaped.  What we really need to be asking ourselves as we are moving away alone in our little globes is what the trap really was, taking the time and effort to give a little to help somebody else out and possibly reach a new understanding and relationship with that person, heal something that was broken both in them and maybe even in ourselves, or continuing to stay in a shell that pushes everyone away in selfish fear.

I'm fairly sure I don't have this dynamic figured out yet.  I'll continue to tumble these pieces and ponder.