WHAT’S OUR STORY ANYWAY?

Based on my experiences in the last years, I reckon that there is a need that we as a society will be focusing energies on?building communities based on a new sense of identity.

Civilization as we know it is currently developing extremely fast on the technological level and yet progresses with baby steps in all that has to do with social structures.

Since the world is built upon?fractalized structures, culture as a whole can be compared to the life of a single human, as we at the moment stand on the brink of adulthood (if we assume for a moment that the industrial age symbolizes our entrance to adolescence, an age characterized by irresponsible accumulation and conflict, or the “first me” age) a possible regression is at hand, as can be seen in various places world-wide.

To prevent the regression into some form of re-nationalistic approach (which represents the last stage of meaningful and yet destructive cooperation), a new idea of what “identity” entails needs to be born. As our ethical evolution developed from empathizing with our family at first, then relatives in tribal society, to Geo-political groups and nations, neo-liberalism is found to not be enough to provide us with a sense of common identity. Still, most people we pass by are considered “foreign” or “strange” (as derived from “a stranger”), both extremely problematic terms from the viewpoint of holistic philosophy.

Yet it is very difficult to imagine another form of viewing ourselves, when anchored in our current economy, a system based on scarcity rather than abundance.?Scarcity creates competition, and in every competition there is a need for teams, team leaders, winning and losing positions. The game played on a daily basis is rooting the idea deeply in our minds that we are simply not enough as we are, a notion greatly supported by the capitalistic lifestyle.

To be distinguished from a curiosity based process of personal development, the undervaluation of the self as complete and the underestimation of the self’s power over its surroundings, creates a constant sense of stress and dissatisfaction, which in turn creates many of the personal and social sicknesses and distress felt throughout modern history.

Disconnection from eachother is very relevant when trying to survive the game. One cannot let himself identify and empathize with “the other” since it’s eventually “either them or me”, and they would be right to do so if following the rules. The greatest pity is though, that there aren’t really any winners in this game (besides maybe those few sitting at the top of the pyramid), diabolically similar to the game of “who’s right?”, written much about by the founding father of NVC, Marshall Rosenberg.

Growing up in Israel during a time of great conflict (which seems often to be the case) I have always felt very sad when hearing about assassinations (also called “Targeted Prevention” or “retaliation attacks“ in ongoing war scenarios). Whether when Palestinian or Israeli lives were at stake, depression came over me, a depression I could not talk about or explain even to myself, because I am not practically “supposed” to empathize with the “enemy”.

In some preposterous manner, even though it is already obvious at this time that the only thing that essentially separates two nations is the story maintained (with sometimes an extremely anecdotal difference), our identity is still very much based on the?random nationality?that we are born into and carry with us our entire lives, even to the extent of having the responsibility of being acting as an ambassador of your nation, and sometimes we do treat eachother as such.

Once in a while, during travelling periods I would meet someone, and after revealing my origin country (the first answer commonly asked when meeting “a stranger”), I was frequently told how unfair “you guys” are acting towards the Palestinian population. To which I would usually respond with: “ I’m sorry, but I am not my nationality, and though I had often wished they would, unfortunately enough the state does not ask me before they commence with yet another military operation on its population’s behalf”, an answer that would frequently, and hopefully, lead the discussion to a more of a “same eye-level” basis.

The nation based identity?was a good solution for its time and did its part in getting people to cooperate within the lines of their own borders. However what we face now is a social-political-environmental and psychological crisis that exceeds beyond any made-up borders and demands that we open our eyes to see humanity as a whole. While coming back to our fractalized structures, we see that the whole is also just a part of only something bigger, the family of living-beings, connected to each of its parts in an inseparable manner, one that binds us deeply with what we perceive as not alive as well.

In this belief system, the world is not just our home, it is what we are, what we were and we will become, as we are tied to this place by consciousness and form.

We see again and again that in many different ways,?belief systems create realities. The idea of a “self-realizing prophecy” is in many cases an actual phenomenon since thought tends to materialize into action which in turn invites a reaction that develops quickly into a narrative that cannot be undermined and treated as “the truth”.

And as The neurologist and psychotherapist Viktor Frankl suggested that what really motivates people is the meaning behind what they do, it leaves me, and I suppose many of us with an open question: What “Story” do we want to tell, that would provide the base for a new sense of Identity in a world craving for meaning and connection?