Interconnectedness Is Not About Merging
'Experiencing the wider identity of our connected self does not mean losing our individuality. Quite the opposite: it is through finding and playing our unique role within a community that we feel more strongly part of it. There is an important shift here away from the idea that cohesion and order depend on everyone thinking and acting the same way. That would simply lead to a mob mentality, in which our uniqueness is submerged and our autonomy abandoned.
'For a complex system to self-organize and function well, it requires both the integration and the differentiation of its parts. Complex organism such as our bodies require high levels of biodiversity. Compare that with a monocrop agriculture, in which rows and rows of the same plant growing the same way might look ordered but are dependent on chemical inputs and vulnerable to changing conditions. It is similar with human beings… The courage to listen to our conscience and live our own truth is integral to joining, rather than merging, with the larger circles of life we belong to.
'When you fall in love, you feel incredibly bonded with your loved one and at the same time more uniquely yourself, different from anyone else in the world. The experience of connectedness with a healthy community has similar qualities; it brings out our latent, distinctive gifts.'
- Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, 'Active Hope.'
'For a complex system to self-organize and function well, it requires both the integration and the differentiation of its parts. Complex organism such as our bodies require high levels of biodiversity. Compare that with a monocrop agriculture, in which rows and rows of the same plant growing the same way might look ordered but are dependent on chemical inputs and vulnerable to changing conditions. It is similar with human beings… The courage to listen to our conscience and live our own truth is integral to joining, rather than merging, with the larger circles of life we belong to.
'When you fall in love, you feel incredibly bonded with your loved one and at the same time more uniquely yourself, different from anyone else in the world. The experience of connectedness with a healthy community has similar qualities; it brings out our latent, distinctive gifts.'
- Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, 'Active Hope.'