Heroes Not Zombies

When I noticed these little funghi growing amongst the gravel I had an old thought jump back into my mind.

For a long time I’ve thought one of the most fundamental paradoxes of human personality is the need to belong and the need to be separate, or to put it another way, the need to be the same, or similar, and the need to be different.

We need both. And, like all human paradoxes, we need both at the same time. I don’t want to feel excluded, to be an outcast or stranger who doesn’t fit in. But I wouldn’t want to fit in so well that I disappeared. I want to belong, but I also want to know and fully express my uniqueness.

How do we do that? How do we hold onto our uniqueness AND the uniqueness of every other person we ever meet, yet find sufficient connections, similarities, commonalities that we know, equally well, that we share so much of our selves, our existence, with everyone else on this little planet?

How do we manage to take care of ourselves and the lives of others at the same time?

By seeing ourselves in context?

I’m sure that’s at least part of the answer. It’s knowing my essence AND knowing my embedded web of connections and relationships, that leads me to fully appreciate my uniqueness. A uniqueness that could only exist in the world/environment/cosmos where we all exist together.