Via Andrea Balt

on Dec 30, 2011

A Declaration of Interdependence.

M.C. Escher

 I have a question…

Have you ever wondered where you end and where others begin? Do you stay within your body or the space surrounding it? Are you sure?

Aren’t you also present, in a way, wherever your thought goes?  Or are you completely confined to the limits of your skin?

If our thoughts are vibrations and as such, energy, when or where do they stop being ours and turn into someone else’s breath?

Am I real or is the person you imagine me to be, more real? Does it matter that I can breathe? By being a figment of your imagination, can’t she also breathe through you? So isn’t she then more alive than me, especially if you’ve never seen or touched me? In this case, I’d be the imagined one, the little fuel you need to bring her to life.

Can we be both real and imaginary at once? Subjects in our own life and objects in the lives of others?

How do my actions fit into the domino effect that will, sooner or later, reach you?

What are the implications of me writing this? Could I ever possibly know or see the end of anything? And if I can’t, should I be the best version of myself, just in case?

How do my thoughts align with yours and thousands of others to create a shared social imagination that will only serve as a platform for more thoughts and actions and thoughts and actions?

Can we survive, like this, in two parallel universes, eternally distracted by a digital world while breathing in the analog one, with one hard-drive made of steel and another one, of flesh? Moreover, can we not just survive but become fully and contagiously alive?

If technology has inevitably turned into an extension of our brains and fingers, can we use it as an ally instead of an enemy?  To restore, instead of destroy?

How connected are we?

For the good and the bad; the nice and the ugly; in sickness and in health; we’re not just married to our spouses or partners or families; we’re married to each other, to everybody else, to nature, animals and our entire, heartbroken human race.

In school we were taught to answer questions, but not as much to ask them. And it’s a shame, because specific answers are often relative (nothing is absolute); they are personal (whether it’s an individual, a group or a community—it counts as a unit of thought); and they are local (yes, even an entire country is located in only one area).

Sometimes they paralyze our bigger Yes, into a bunch of lesser Nos.

In addition to this, for the past 50 years, our common answers have also been precooked and microwaved—not much chewing or digestion allowed.

But it’s the Question that gives you the freedom of thought and pulls you out of your old ways when your breath clouds your own windows.

Wars are fought with answers: wrong, unfair, bloody ones. Peace is made by asking. Doors are only opened by questions, not broken down by hammer-answers.

There’s a new life knocking at the doors of the old. When you turn down the volume, can you hear my heart beating inside your chest?

The day is almost over. We must evolve before we go to sleep. We can update our Declaration of Independence as human beings—and as citizens of the world—into a more inclusive one into a more inclusive one (one quarter digital, yes) but also three quarters human. Yes?

U speak Interdependence?

“There is one common flow, one common breathing. All things are in sympathy.” ~ Hippocrates

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Andréa Balt is an unfinished book, garage philosopher, eco maniac, art nut & other unrealistic & impractical things on a bike. She has a BA in Communication, an MFA in Creative Writing & she's a certified Nutrition Junkie. You can connect with her via Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest, or pay her a visit at Rebelle Époque, her art & writing blog, where she might fetch you a virtual cup of word-tea. She also makes daily, green rebellion at Rebelle Wellness and she recently co-created Rebelle Society, a creatively maladjusted, imaginary country, occupied by the art of being alive. Rebelle?