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When did you last feel connected to humanity. When was it and why?
Everyone has ups and downs in their life, but through it all we persevere - together. What I want to ask people is when was the last time you remember feeling truly connected to yourself, your community and humanity.
Furthermore what lead to this epiphany, and what was unique about it, and how did it alter your world-view - if at all.
It's important not always for us to describe what's wrong with the world, but also to remember what's right about it. An exercise in remembering the moments that hold us together, is well suited to this aim.
Gross Ryder
Random Chance 30+
I have always wondered what it might be like.
Could someone put their experience into words in a description?
Or is that too difficult to do? It seems that it might be, for maybe it is a feeling, experience or something that one can only feel or have, in order to know they have/had it.
Thanks
Colleen Steen 500+
I have an underlying belief that we are all interconnected energy beings, so I am feeling, participating in the life experience, and observing from that place of connectedness in myself. I see all humans as more the same than different. My perception, is that we need to recognize it in ourselves....or not....it's a choice. I think in general, we cannot share something with others that we do not have in ourselves, so to feel connected with our "self" is a step toward feeling connected with others...what do you think about that?
I also believe that everything in nature is energetically connected, so I feel interconnected with nature as well. As I recall, you have mentioned your feelings about your appreciation for nature in other threads? Do you feel connected with nature? Nature and our environment is, for me, a connecting factor regarding connection to all of humanity because we all share the earth, which sustains all of us.
Levi LCL 10+
Colleen Steen 500+
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
If you consider all systems, and all people, there is nothing/no one in our world actually disconnected from the whole. One may feel disconnected, and that may be due to one's own perception of "self".
Random Chance 30+
Well, thinking is not the same as feeling or experiencing or really having a sense of something.
I don't have that. Never have. I may intellectually think, opine and even believe that we are all connected, and that everything is connected, in ways we know of, experience, have, feel, etc.
But, I have never had that. Simple. If i have, it has been so fleeting, that I am unable to remember what it felt like, a realness about it, that it was real and true and so on. And so on, because I am unable to put into words even the lack of it.
I know how this came to be, to some degree, and all I have done to undo, get through, put it behind, leave it, or however one could put it, has failed. Or, I have failed at it. Simple. That is what is true and I can only go by what is true.
I abhor lies and to some degree they are part of the reason I am so disassociated from myself and thus others.
I no longer try to find it. If it comes, suddenly, out of the blue, I might know it, sense it, experience it, but it will vanish almost immediately. That is how it has been. But in a strange way, it reminds me of the insides of protons. Empty, except for virtual particles popping in and out of existence.
Feelings I do have are like writing this, while I sense I am not here and am somewhere else, but I know not where.
Colleen Steen 500+
Thinking is not the same as feeling. If you wish it to be, perhaps one of these days you can hold onto that "fleeting" moment and make it a permanent part of you?
I don't perceive that you have "failed" at anything Random. Anyone who is exploring life and all its complexities, as you are, is growing and learning. The fact that you are sharing so much about yourself here and now suggests that you are more connected than you may think/feel?
Obey No1kinobe 50+
Sometimes just when chatting with someone.
When meditating or seeing someone expressing strong emotion, other than violence.
Scott Koenraadt
Levi LCL 10+
Don Wesley 50+
When someone, unknown to me, delivers to me, or someone else, an act of compassion.
I feel Grace.
Brotherly Love (Hebrews 13:1)
Aware of and caring about you and all of humanity
Don..
Don Wesley 50+
Compassion - Please - Remember those who gave and those who were killed.
Between 1914 and 1945, 70 million lost their lives in War.
The Science of the "Silent Generation" is the "lever" which moved us to where we are today.
http://innjustice.blogspot.ca/2011/12/science-of-silent-generation-is-lever.html
Until soon,
Aware of and caring about you All.
Don [From The Silent Generation - 1930's]
Don Wesley 50+
A Story about Compassion.
Fallen Art 2004
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_7ojVm806c
Until soon,
Aware of and caring about you All.
Don [From The Silent Generation - 1930's]
Levi LCL 10+
Don Wesley 50+
Where there is "Good" there are always accusers, with no Compassion.
I was told to ask you why you Hate.
And I ask you who is the "us" you claim to lead as their Director-General.
Do you not see the spam in your own 'Eye.'
Colleen Steen 500+
I do not perceive "hate" in Levi's request. I perceive a facilitator of a discussion, trying to keep us all on topic, which TED encourages. So the "us" appears to be the TED community.
Don Wesley 50+
A friend composed this song of compassion
Steve at his Guitar – His Song of Compassion - http://don1933.blogspot.ca/
Until soon,
Aware of and caring about you
Don [From The Silent Generation - 1930's]
Don Wesley 50+
How does someone define what feeling connected to humanity means?
My answer is with a Story and story behind the Story.
Here are some paragraph headings within the Story I love telling:
A - When asked if we give, how many lie, about Awareness and Caring; about suffering?
B - To be aware
C - To feel caring
D - To deliver care
E - To give care when aware equals kindness.
F - Billy graham says are awareness and caring about suffering hasn’t kept pace with technology.
G -The Look of Kindness in action - Feel the Difference – Cruelty
http://innjustice.blogspot.ca/2011/05/look-of-kindness-in-action.html
H - Love is misunderstood to be an emotion; actually,
It is a state of awareness, a way of being in the world,
Away of seeing oneself and others
http://innjustice.blogspot.ca/2011/12/love.html
I - Until soon,
Aware of and caring about you
Don [From The Silent Generation - 1930's]
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
That is why I love a good story, and my stories are loved when I'm opportuned to tell it.
My emotions, thoughts, hopes, expectations, feelings and experiences constantly reminds me that I am human.
Levi LCL 10+
Comment deleted
Levi LCL 10+
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
Colleen Steen 500+
I believe a LOT of learning can take place in the face of challenges. We, as individuals and as a global community, can look at situations, evaluate, learn and grow. I don't believe there is much learning when we feel disconnected. Disconnection generally does not facilitate change. It is by being totally connected that we have an opportunity to change the situation.
I agree Levi, we need to hear more of the good things that are happening in our world. What we focus on expands. If we are constantly focusing on what is "wrong", we may never notice what is "right". The good things that are happening are what we can build on to create a better world.
Craig Patterson 10+
pat gilbert 50+
What causes the problems are people who gain from conflict. On one hand we had the cold war which justified having a military to oppose those who stood to gain from conflict on the other side going all the way back to Sputnik. The military industrial complex needs something to do and lobby to see to it that it stays that way.
The problem is that terrorist war does not require the industrial military complex.
I talk to people from Iran, Iraq, Palestine all the time.I consider them to be friends.
Long term animosity is not organic to humans it is created by those who gain from conflict, that is where you should look.
Levi LCL 10+
pat gilbert 50+
Elizabeth Gu 30+
When I was teaching my students in a Private Institute in Korea, I felt somehow bad for them. I promised myself that I would change the way we teach our children in this country, and set them free.
When I see the people like me who are trying to overcome obstacles, I sympathize with them and become compassionate.
When did I last feel connected to humanity?
Can't remember because I feel almost everyday.
When I feel like giving up and realize that life is really really hard—unlike my expectation, I become more and more compassionate since there are always people like me who sigh and just wonder, “when will my life gets better?”
From my personal experience, I realize that I aspire to give people a hope when I am ready.
:)
Warm Regards~
Levi LCL 10+
Don Wesley 50+
"When did you last feel connected to humanity. When was it and why?"
The answer, with all “Hot Air” removed, is when becoming vividly aware of His presence within.
This feeling of Kindness pushes us, all the time, to be aware, and to care
about acting with compassion, using our “Hands.” to help.
I thought everyone felt and acted with compassion, until the force of “Bureaucratic Injustice”
delivered me from “Home to Homelessness.” July 31, 2009.
I immediately asked “all” in view of me for a helping hand. Their “Hands” showed me to the door as if I was “Evil.”
I quickly learned that compassion is a mystery to most everyone.
Peace and all the best to you and until soon .
Don Wesley [From The Silent Generation - the 30's]
[someone who is at present a victim of evil abuse]
Levi LCL 10+
Colleen Steen 500+
Colleen Steen 500+
I've ALWAYS felt connected, and often wonder why people feel disconnected. As you say Levi, there are ups and downs in life, and that does not need to alter our feeling of connections. There are many levels of connectivity, and we may feel more or less connected with various people at different times. Underlying all levels of connection, I believe we are all energetically connected, and I have believed that since I was a child.
There are times when I feel connected, and others may not choose to feel the connection, and that's ok....it is a choice to recognize it.....or not. It has very little to do with "what's wrong with the world", and more to do with what is happening in ourselves. In my perception and experience, the more mindfully aware we are, the more we realize our interconnectedness:>)
I have the same experience as Fritzie....I don't ever remember NOT feeling connected.
Levi LCL 10+
I've defenitly run into people who don't feel connected, who are quite intensly focused inside, and who perpetuate conflict in their own lives feeling that close connections are alien, and assume individual loneliness is the norm. Perhaps we've been lucky in some regard, not to have harsh situations which put as at odds with others, like people being heavily discriminated against in daily life, genocide, extreme poverty, and modern slavery.
Then again feeling connected is a matter of effort on behalf of the individual (but I believe others play a role), ultimately.
Colleen Steen 500+
I think/feel "it comes to be", by first recognizing it in ourself. We cannot give others, something we do not have in ourselves...for ourselves. We need to be familier with it before we can extend it to others.
I do not believe it is the situations in our lives that cause us to feel disconnected because many people who have faced incredible challenges in the life experience have stayed connected with themselves and others.
I agree with you that there are folks who are intensly focused inside....on themselves....complaining about no one being compassionate. When one has decided that no one is compassionate, that is the reality that person creates for him/her "self", then it is like you say...they may "perpetuate conflict in their own lives feeling that close connections are alien". Good point Levi. We often create, in our lives exactly what we believe in.
I certainly agree that "others play a role", in our life experience, and many people can contribute to our wellbeing. However, when we depend on others, to totally take care of our wellbeing, we may be setting ourselves up for disappointment. As thinking, feeling, evolving, multi-sensory, multi-dimensional humans, we have the ability to orchestrate our lives on many levels. If one is not doing that effectively, and blaming his/her discomfort on everyone else, or the world situation, s/he is missing an opportunity to be fully connected with him/her "self", and the whole of humanity.
pat gilbert 50+
Levi LCL 10+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Did you experience such an epiphany at some point in your life?
Levi LCL 10+
Fritzie Reisner 100+