In Charles Eisenstein’s latest post at Reality Sandwich he continues a spot-on commentary describing the disconnected nature of an “ideal” modern existence.

From part one of his reuniting the self series Charles summarizes the problems of the modern psyche,

“Better than reading a description of the modern self is to actually experience it. Close your eyes for half a minute and picture a human being doing nothing but existing. Just existing. Do it now before reading on.

When I offer this experiment in my seminars, I ask people, “Was the image of somebody alone?” Most people admit that it was: often they picture a person just kind of floating in space, or in a nondescript setting. That reveals our basic experience of being: to be is to be alone. To exist is to be separate. Relationship is necessary, perhaps, for an organism to survive, but it is not intrinsic to its basic existence. We perceive ourselves as separate beings having relationships. But this is not the truth. We are not separate beings having relationships. In fact, we are relationship.”

But how can this be? That we consist of relationship? This notion was easy for me to accept because of my readings of Krishnamurti where the great thinker says,

If you observe yourself in relationship with others, do you not find that relationship is a process of self-revelation? – J. Krishnamurti

Essentially Krishnamurti is saying that by having a true relationship with someone else, we are revealing the intimate and true nature of our inner being to ourselves. That by seeing others as inconsiderate and uninteresting we reveal our own outlook on life. The perception become reality. Our reality drives that perception. From my experience, the humans that know who they are are truly rare. To begin that path of self-discovery you must build a relationship with your community and your world.

But the rate at which we build those relationships is at an all-time low argues Eisenstein. Because we have replaced the methods for which we fulfill our biological needs with commodities and disconnection in sharp contrast with the ways our ancestors existed,

“It is not surprising that the lonely, diminished self of modern civilization should crave to restore something of its lost being. We have been shorn of the connections that make us whole. Your ancestors in a hunter-gatherer tribe or agrarian village lived in a matrix of connections that we can barely imagine today. At least I can barely imagine it, and not without weeping. In those times, every face you saw day-to-day was a familiar face. The relationships that sustained life were personal relationships. You knew the person who grew your food and cooked your food, you knew the person who built your house and made your clothes, you knew the person who sang your songs and performed your entertainment. Most likely, you knew them intimately, as they knew you. You knew each other’s histories, who your first love was, your narrow escape from death at age four, that embarrassing incident at age 12, your pranks and your personality; you knew the stories of each other’s parents and grandparents as well. You were woven together in a rich social tapestry that defined who you were. Being intimately known by others, you knew yourself as well. Furthermore, any action reverberated in a very tangible way out into the community, and back again to you. It was obvious that what you do to others, you in fact do to yourself. The Golden Rule was not originally a rule at all, but a description.”

And many could take a view like this as an antiquated view of reality, romanticism for the past but in my view it is the next evolution of science. To embrace the modern ecology and human psyche in a holistic system approach. An approach also advocated by Charles,

“A paradise on earth is available right now, easily, closer than close. It is a shift of perception away. The epidemics of our time show us that, too. A prodigious energy will be freed when we end the War against the Self encoded in autoimmunity. A magnificent abundance will become available when we stop consuming things we don’t need in compensation for the things we do. And these shifts together come as a result of the pain of the diseases themselves, and of the other ills of our age. The illness is the medicine. The true nature of the connected self, love, is beckoning in every realm. It is your true nature and it is mine. Let us relax into it.”

A refreshing message for our society. A society which must soon reckon with the consequences of unchecked and irresponsible consumerism. The consequences of which are only just now manifesting in national economic trouble.