“Meditate often on the interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all things in the universe. For in a sense, all things are mutually woven together and therefore have an affinity for each other — for one thing follows after another according to their tension of movement, their sympathetic stirrings, and the unity of all substance.”
MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.38
The quote from today’s page in The Daily Stoic book makes me think of the concept of the collective unconscious — the idea that we’re all tied together mentally at a universal level, whether we realize it or not.
I think there’s some truth to that. We’re all connected in mysterious and profound ways, some understood and felt naturally, and some only theorized. The great stoic philosophers knew this intuitively.
This connectedness of everything is often sensed when the trappings of society are stripped away by psychedelics. Feeling that, and removing the blockers so that you can reconnect with everything is powerful medicine, and that’s what psychonauts are attempting when they go on their inward journeys with the aid of magic mushrooms, for example.
Author Ryan Holiday reminds us that on the flip side, when we lose sight of the connected nature of everyone and everything, this opens the door to human cruelty on a grand scale. We’ve seen that throughout history — especially in the form of oppression and genocide — as our obvious connection to people who happen to look different from us is denied and (sometimes intentionally) ignored.
But imagine what’s possible when we do the opposite, when we intentionally focus on our human connectedness? When we prioritize the fact that we are tied together by invisible strings which we are still learning about?
We’ve tried and failed to increase human connection via the promise of the Internet, and then with social media. Those did have some small pockets of success, but ultimately were washed away by division and hatred, stoked by companies eager to turn a profit at human expense.
What’s next, though? How can we increase our understanding and appreciation of the vast fabric from which we are all woven? How can we prioritize it, above greed, above money? How can we keep reminding ourselves that we’re all connected?
