i-contact & eye contact
Twinkle twinkle inner stars,
Ever wonder why we are?
Deep below the world of We,
Lies a diamond in the Me.
Twinkle twinkle inner stars,
How we wander so afar.
Hey Planet Person, we’re all diamonds (in the rough-and-tumble of Life) … desperate to be seen … to be heard … to be confirmed of our worth …
We seek affirmations “out there” mostly. Which is natural considering we’re a communal species. But what happens when “out there” is busy? Or in a bad mood? Or breaks up with you? Or absentmindedly forgets about you?
CommYounity.
Yep it’s corny and I didn’t corn that phrase. But the fact is it’s about communing with your Self when the rest of us are “unavailable” and the world is incapable. The Community of You, and all the aspects of that being which contribute to your humanness, comprises the soul of you … the yearnings of you … the fears of you … the thoughts and reflective behaviours of you. This massive internal community’s clear course is contingent upon its leader’s ability to hear it — and then steer it — with care. Leadership begins within, no matter who / how mighty one is.
The Meaning of Life lies upon the lies we tell ourselves in order to survive our “life sentence”. But that’s a stale and counterproductive paradigm way past its prime. Self protection is part of our universal makeup. But too much makeup obscures our individual beauty and the only way to see it is to take the risk and be it. In little doses, that aren’t harmful to self or other.
Even if we’re clever at crafting our protective veneer we can “sense” when it’s off kilter, when we’re not being true to ourselves. And if we’re not that intuitively adept … if we’re so mired in our own invention that we’ve lost detection, we’ll get the message of imbalance overtly; through compromised health, wellbeing, and relationships.
Through no fault of our own, our heads and hearts are ever buried as we wind up hostages to our i-things and so many other things in a self-protective measure to insulate our soft underbelly from rejection. The world is a tough audience and we have little resilience-training, potentially loveable mushes that most of us are (at birth). A “stitch in time saves nine” but a shift in time saves nine; by 2050 there’ll be 9 billion of us Planet Persons roaming the Earth in search of self-worth. Super stars? More like stupor stars. And we’re growing numb-er by the numbers.
Until we start to see the Me in the We in the Me, until we stop cultivating a cult of hating (which begins with oneself) and know that everyone’s winging it no matter how cultivated their demeanor or powerful their position, we’ll be in the pergatory of an internal Star Wars in which everyone’s stealing each other’s thunder, starving for stardom and no audience left to star for.
So where to start? Star with your Self.
The Meaning of Life lies behind those very personal eyes that belong to our Self and are always looking at us, waiting for us to make a connection but which we mostly avoid — which then leaves a void.
i-contact, eye contact, and I contact — they’re all relevant in this complex world which has created a world of increasing complexes. Do we want the i of that neat gadget? The eye of that passerby? Or the I of a personal moment with oneself? All are fine but it’s up to us to define this balance so we see Life and our personal life depthfully, holistically, and with vision rather than tunnel vision.
Our wondrous world of i-things distracts us from seeing our quiet Being, without its visible audience and immediate payoff — but in this case “being is believing” if we give it time.
So go on … take a peek-a-boo at you, little twinkler :-).
Originally published at medium.com