‘Ano-sog-nosia’ is a medical term that may explain the human condition. It is 'when a person suffering a disability is unaware of that disability'. Or simply, suffering from a lack of insight or awareness. One mental concept contributes more to this damaging and often lethal medical condition than any other factor. The human invented concept of ‘independence’. It exists nowhere in the known universe. It is an essentially an illusion. An illusion driving our increasing disconnect from reality and exacerbating our failures in dealing with reality.
An irrevocable fact of all life is that our health, thoughts, prosperity and out survival itself is irreversibly dependent on so many factors its difficult to list them all. But it is our voluntary or learned mental disconnect from a small list of the most important factors that are increasingly self evident as the source of Covid19 and our troubles. And likely our inevitable extinction if we cannot heal ourselves from this fundamental delusion.
Our greatest disconnects include (but are not limited to):
#1. The Environment: Few things have been more damaging to the long term survival of our species as our belief that we must conquer nature. Nature can make life short, brutish and uncomfortable. But so does war and poverty, and we haven’t taken the necessary steps to conquer either of those. The environment is our life support system. It consists of a very thin and fragile biofilm covering our planet that is protected by a number of non-biofilm factors. Gravity, polarization, the ionosphere and atmosphere… and don’t forget the life giving energy from the sun and the gravitational influence of the Moon. Within this biofilm every drop of seawater, speck of soil and liter of air contains thousands if not millions of life forms. Some may cause human illness or death but 99.9% play a vital role in our survival or contribute in some way to the chain of life that sustains our planetary life support system. We see our human made dwellings as our refuge from nature and turn the outside of our house, the ‘yard, into an unnatural environment to ‘improve’ the looks of our home. We turn to chemicals, other unnatural elements, and non-native invasive species to create the appearance someone respectable ‘lives’ there.
2. Our bodies: While we may be ‘spiritual beings’ our existence for now depends upon a relatively complicated but well organized chunk of organic matter that requires certain constant inputs and expulsions to survive. Some evidence suggests our souls may someday move beyond the body’s needs but for now we need to keep our bodies healthy. We seldom do. Overconsumption and malconsumption sickens us, debilitates us, and too often kills us before we have contributed much of value to the survival of our species. And increasingly we demonstrate little interest in boosting the physical capacity of our adaptable, auto-repairing organic form -- and this tends to slowly accelerate its disintegration and usefulness. This can happen so slowly fail to perceive it until it’s too late.
3. Our loved ones: Time commitments to work and the time we commit to the gadgets we use for transportation, communication and entertainment(cell phones, TVs and computers…) is time we don’t spend face to face or hand in hand with those we love.
4. Our community: Our homes are seen as not only an escape from nature, but from an increasingly unfriendly, sometimes hostile, social environment we perceive largely from listening to the news and interacting with others close to us — who may have points of view that make us annoyed, angry, indifferent or uncomfortable.
5. Our Government: At best we believe that government is inefficient. At its worse, dysfunctional or conspiratorial. We have forgotten that ours is a government of “We the People”. It is not some ‘thing’ or cabal in Washington DC, the state capitol, or city hall. It is an institution that we have chosen by place of residence, voting (or not voting) to be responsible for things around us. Rarely are we active ‘citizens’ between elections…except maybe to complain or protest.
6. Our Politicians: Because their mouths are moving, we assume they are lying. And, if they have the courage to tell us the truth, we choose not to vote for them. We rarely feel connected enough to them, even though they were elected to represent us (or our state or nation). We rarely tell them in a letter or meeting what we want, need, or value most. Usually our closest connection to them leading up to an election when they ask us for donations - or during troubled times when we need their help.
7. Science and facts: Our minds have developed concepts that have disconnected or distanced our minds and our bodies from reality. Those vital things that we each need. We pray and hope that a higher force will save us from our selves. We make up other beliefs to explain random events or prejudiced views of trends.
8. The heavens: Both physical and spiritual. For as long as humans have existed we have been able to look up in the night and see the majesty of billions of stars, many concentrated in paths across the sky and, occasionally, a few that streak across the heaven. And then we wonder, ‘how did we get here?’ and ‘why are we here?’ Now we look up and consider ourselves fortunate to see electric lights or a calm sky not muted by smog or light pollution. And, act nonchalant that some of our species actually flew to, then walked on the moon, and returned safely.
9. Other peoples: We separate our selves from nearly seven billion other people by divisions of sex, skin color, religion, ethnic group, political party or nationality. When in fact, we are all essentially the same children of nature or nature’s God. All with the same needs and human vulnerabilities. Then we devise different customs, uniforms, preferences, rules, and ideas that divide us even further.
Then, we wonder why we feel like ‘something’ is missing in our lives. And somehow we marshal the audacity to wonder why some people grab a gun and mass murder other sentient beings claiming they felt “disconnected”. Chances are they were visibly and physically unloved by anyone within their reach or sight.
It’s not a tragedy that we have seen a spike in mass killings in the last twenty years. It’s a miracle that far more people haven’t done it. This is reason enough for some hope/optimism. The bad news is that research shows that optimists are less likely to achieve their goals because they are less likely to analyze the barriers they will need to overcome. Where there is pessimism there is less action. And where there is hope, there is often too little action. What is needed is commitment. A commitment to analyze the barriers, the devise and implement plans of action, to overcome them. That is not only unAmerican. It maybe an illness in our mental state.
It is noteworthy that with some very important things in the real world we are increasingly connected. Primely via technology in economics, environment, Infectious diseases (nature’s or man-made) and now Covid19 is trying to remind us, computers (information, communication, cyber crime…) Transportation (people, goods and services) -- each carry the potential for great global good or catastrophic global harm.
How healthy can you be if you are well adjusted to a profoundly sick society?
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