My Birthday Wish For You

Yes, today, March 1, is my birthday, and while I like to stay conscious across the line, on special days it is important to go a little deeper. I wanted to give you a gift, the gift of the moment I knew all would be well in the world, for all its blemishes.

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Fifteen years or so ago, I traveled to Tanzania to do research for my novel GREAT SKY WOMAN. I was there with my darling daughter Nicki, on photo safari, and had a wonderful time.

But there was a hidden agenda: I wanted to see for myself the people of Africa, as I had already seen for myself the people of Europe. Why? Because I was raised in a country that had said, in a million subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that my African genes were inferior. I could push back against that, and had, but it required energy, like a stream flowing into a cess-pool of fear and venom. Only so long as the stream keeps flowing does the sewage not back up into the stream.

So I was watching things. Reaction time. Interpretations of stimulus. Complexity of thought and humor. Integration of new experience. Especially among children. And remembered playing with some Maasai children, just little games, as most children’s games are exercises in logic and coordination. And they were simply wonderful. Beautiful. They were little seeds of human potential, glowing with life.

And I felt something relax within me, some knot I hadn’t even allowed myself to really admit was there. But then the next question arose: why so much poverty and strife amid the beauty? The answer that came to me most naturally was to assume a lack of connection to the “road of silk” running from Britain to India and China, carrying wealth and information in a rolling tide back and forth, and that everything on that route developed at a different rate than things separated from it, say by the expanding Sahara.

What then was the answer? Connection. Communication. Shared experience. All I had to do was assume equality, that whites were not innately evil, and all was well. That’s all it took. But how long?

Infrastructure is a tricky thing, and in one sense communications infrastructure is like the central nervous system of the Body Human. A certain level of complexity necessary to kick into the “I am” level of consciousness as opposed to the pleasure-pain level of a flatworm. What would help that, here?

And then one day, as we were motoring between our hotel and Ngorongoro crater through farmland, I saw a Maasai warrior watching his cattle, leaning on his spear and standing one-legged as his ancestors had for five thousand years…

…talking into his cell phone.

I laughed and laughed. There it was. Life was finding the way. The rest is just details.

The devil, of course, is in the details.

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Are people inherently good? I occasionally get someone telling me they think I’m a Pollyanna, who sees nothing but good in humanity. I have to laugh at that, and wonder why, if I’m such a see-no-evil type, I’ve spent half a century studying how to hurt people. Why the three black belts? It was purely so that I could deal with the problem “fear of being hurt.” That partially meant feeling like I could deal with most dangerous circumstances, but most importantly deal with the fear inside my own heart. Because that would be the real test. People who have not dealt with that, come to grips with it, are controlled by it. It either stops them from pursuing their dreams, or draws them into ugly situations again and again, until they have learned what they need to know…or injured themselves so badly they can no longer justify the adventure.

I believe we sense the truth of life, even if we can’t be sure, or are in denial, just as we sense the truth of gravity even if we don’t understand F = G*((m sub 1*m sub 2)/r²).

As those ultimate truths cannot be “proven” and are a matter of faith, I chose a position with eyes open that I can never be “sure.” I can certainly cite reasons I choose it, but the fact is that the real reason is that I love myself: my mother gave me the resources to do this. And I see myself in others, the “one soul looking out through many eyes” notion, the idea that we are like mushrooms: apparently separate, but all part of the same mycelial mass…makes sense to me. I CANNOT PROVE IT, of course. But

1. It makes sense of all human history and psychology.
2. It explains why the world is as it is today
3. It points the way toward a better tomorrow.

So…what are these beliefs, at core?

1. We are biological creatures seeking to move away from pain toward pleasure. That every human behavior can be charted using this pattern. When it looks like someone has chosen pain, look more closely into why they see no better options.
2. We are emotional creatures seeking to move away from fear toward love.
3. We are spiritual creatures, and that everything we have ever done, anything ANYONE has ever done, has been an attempt to connect with the divine, or with that sense of peace felt in the womb, or however else you choose to represent a sense of total connection and love.
4. We are doing the best we can with the resources we have.
5. That over time, the behaviors we call “good” are more productive of joy and peace than the behaviors we call “bad.”
6. That the Dalai Lama’s statement that the “meaning of life is to seek joy” is as close to a workable , useful definition in words as I believe can be made.

Given these things, being a “good” human being is just wanting the best for yourself, over time. It is loving yourself enough to want connection with others, which demands communication and maturity. It demands healing yourself until the vicious voices that can dominate our thoughts begin to quiet. It means seeing yourself in others enough to see their desperation to simply feel GOOD in the short period of time we have to play this game called Life.

There are those afraid that if they see the humanity in others they will be less safe. Not if they love themselves, and see themselves in others.

Let me ask those people a question: what would it take for you to become twisted enough to harm innocents? How different from your current self would you be? A rabid animal?

I told Nicki’s mom Toni something very serious long ago: if I ever, EVER became the kind of person who would hurt her, or Nicki, to know that THAT WAS NOT ME. That her primary responsibility would be to herself, and to our child, NOT ME. And that the very best thing she could do for ME was put me out of my misery, because there would be some part of me, deep within, that would be horrified at what I had become, and wish for something, anything, to stop me from hurting the people I loved.

And if there were no such spark left within me? Even more reason to put me down.

For herself, for me, for the good of our child and children everywhere…I would have to be stopped.

I can see the good, the love, the Godliness in every human. And also know that I am doing no one any good to let that person run amok. Love does not preclude self-defense, or the defense of others.

But from that place of security (NOT that I will be able to deal with any circumstance. Everyone can and will die. But that I accept I am moving through the flow of life, and that I have the right and responsibility to do this on terms agreeable to myself and the universe), I can see clearly.

I can feel that the history of the universe, from a billionth of a second after the Big Bang onward, has been the story of interconnection and increasing complexity.

That the history of life on earth has been the same.

That the history of human society has been the same.

That at every level of that interconnection there has been love, but also chaos and confusion, and that it is not “evil” to fear it…it is human, just as an amoeba might fear joining a multicellular organism. Loss of individual identity. The tension between joining a more complex structure and remaining “free” is a totally valid and critical aspect of our existence, and affects our politics and philosophies to this day.

But if I take that long view, then war, and violence, and racism, and sexism, and other human issues are just part of the process of interconnection and evolution. They are nothing but externalizations of the “war” within the individual human hearts. Are YOU totally honest with yourself and others? Are YOU without fear? Are YOU totally clear in your intents and actions? Do YOU keep all your promises to yourself?

If not…why in the world would you expect others to be? There is no human cruelty that is not an extension of something I see in myself. It is grimly amusing to watch Facebook threads filled with argument and venom, while people claim that politicians in Washington are incompetent for not getting more done. Are these people joking? Don’t they see THEY are exemplars of the very problems they complain about?

But as there is no evil, no violence, no strife that is not an externalization of what lies within every human heart there is no good, no loving act, no sacrifice or gift to the world that is not the same.

I am all people, and they are me. And as I love myself, I love you.

It is as simple as that. And as I grow more integrated over time, with each daily meditation, each conscious act, each confrontation with my own dishonesty and cowardice, each acceptance of my wounds and failures, each honest sharing of my perspectives…I see the same in the world.

There is nothing wrong in the world right now that feels worse than where I’ve already been, what I’ve already seen. What the human race has not already lived through and grown beyond. Everything that is wrong is a result of people trying to get it right. We’ve come so far, and only for the last 150 years or so has the human race really had communication with itself, anything other than blind groping and mythology, most of which placed “our” tribe at the center of the universe, and said that “the others” are baby-eating sub-humans. That’s where we come from.

But no, they’re not sub-human. And we’re not trans-human. We’re just…human. And the more you can accept and love yourself, and the more you see yourself in others, and the more you can see how far we’ve come…the easier it is to believe in a loving, connected future.

When you see violence in the world around you, remember it is mobilized with anger, but birthed in fear. Ask what they are afraid of, and you will understand yourself a little more deeply.

The cure for fear is love…combined with strength. Never let yourself be hurt. But never stop loving, because if you can forgive those who try to hurt you, you can forgive yourself. Deeply. Meaningfully.

And when you can really forgive and accept yourself? All that remains is love. I’ve been to that place, and felt it. Even if I cannot always hold that energy. But damn…I try. And I pledge to try harder in the future.

So it is from the bottom of my heart, that on my natal day I ask three gifts of you:

Love yourselves.

Love each other.

Have faith.

Namaste

Steven Barnes

www.soulmateprocess.com