Interconnected

Have you ever stopped to think about this? The water that you showered with was once a part of the ocean, and then a part of a cloud. It rained, then through a very long journey, it eventually came to you for the briefest of moments. And then it continues its journey, back to the ocean or some other part of the cycle.

The physical often turns into the abstract, too. The light that shines onto a leaf, then bounces off it and hits the back of your eye, to then be converted to chemical signals that turns into electrical signals that turn into perceptions about the world. A mix of those perceptions then turn into what we call thoughts and create what we call understanding. And then understanding turns into knowledge, and then we gain the ability to think about stuff like this.

The crinkles of your hand are the creases of your mother’s hand, passed down to you. The wrinkles of your face - whether that’s large ones from age, or small ones that you can’t see yet - are a combination of all the happy and sad moments that you’ve lived throughout your life.

In other words, if you look deeply or even not that deeply, everything is interconnected. When we go about our daily lives doing ordinary or extraordinary daily things, I think this is a worthwhile reflection to keep in your pocket from time to time. It’s physically impossible to be truly isolated from the world.

Sometimes, people might think they’re a burden to others. I don’t remember where I read this quote from, but it went something like “anything that exists is a burden to something or someone else”. It’s actually a statement meant to comfort those who feel like their burdening others is a “bad” thing. It’s not bad. It’s just the nature of existing, and it applies to absolutely everyone and everything. But, even if we wanted to isolate ourselves from the world, we can’t. I think the anecdote is that if you feel like you legitimately are a burden, then you can counteract that cost of feeling like a burden, just by being equally benevolent and helpful if not more. That said, that’s just a temporary solution. It’s probably wiser to just realise that everything and everyone is a burden, too, and so it’s just another one of those things we get to delightfully share by existing. So I wouldn’t worry about it. Just be burdens, but together, having fun with your co-burdenability.

I think the main point I wanted to make of this writing was to say that it’s worthwhile appreciating the interconnectedness of things, because I think that that is in its own way something truly beautiful.