We Have Always Been Connected
Beyond the Book: Returning to what we've always known
There are times when fear overwhelms me. There are times when I’m drowning in “what-if"s, where they turn, in my mind, into the “what will be”s. There are times when I’m sure that I will not survive the horrors of this world.
In these times I have to remember what my therapist tells me: “You have already survived.”
Every species has a biological imperative for survival. That survival has always been known as collective. It has always been known to span across beings and across time.
It is perhaps the greatest flaw of the beautiful human mind, that it allows us to believe that we are the one exception in the world to this; that our survival is individual.
Last week, I was in conversation with richie reseda for a future installment of Until All Of Us Are Free.
“We are not individuals,” he said.
I have heard this before, and I have said it before. But he took it further, in a way that has really stuck with me.
He said that we are not individuals, even within ourselves. We are organs and blood and tissues. We are 37 trillion cells. The collective that we are in our own bodies needs food and water and other basic things. It does not know what we do for work. It does not know what car we drive. It does not know who is president.
When the collective needs are met - and only when the collective’s needs are met - will our needs be met. And it never works the other way around.
The day after the 2024 presidential election I dragged my tired body into my office and tried to figure out what to do next. I get through tough times with work. I often try to power through in ways that aren’t always healthy. But as I sat in my office, so weary from a year of trying so desperately to fight genocide and fascism, a year of feeling so very heartbroken and disappointed in so many people - I just wanted to give people my phone number.
I sat in this dark space and looked for a way out and suddenly wanted to protect my connections to people.
How often do people disappear from your lives when they disappear online? How many people do we interact with in internet spaces every day - more than with some friends and family - and yet if one day we were to lose a login, or a platform were to go away, those people would cease to exist to us?
How many people have you marched with at protest after protest, whose face you can recognize in an instant, and yet you don’t know their names?
How many people have you attended rallies with and yet you’ve never attended one of their gigs or birthday celebrations?
I sat in my office the day after election day and realized that all we have is each other. And if all we have is each other, then we have to make sure that we have each other.
This means that we protect our connections to each other. We learn each other’s names, we share phone numbers and emails with those we trust. We show up in joy, not just outrage. In hope, not just fear.
We protect our connections not just with the sharing of contact information. We protect our connections by intentionally building relationship that is more than just accidental or transactional. We protect our connections by learning how to care for each other. We protect our connections by investing in healing skills and practices. We protect our connections by committing to accountability and conflict resolution.
I sat in the dark, and the light that guided me out was the connection to others that I need to survive.
Every single one of us made to feel isolated for our care, every single one of us made to feel alone in our outrage and grief, every single one of us made to feel like our cries for justice lie outside of the bounds of society: we are being lied to.
We are not alone. To be alone is to witness pain and suffering and not feel pain and suffering. To be alone is to fear the liberation of others. To be alone is to think that the wellbeing of others could ever bring anything less than wellbeing to you.
And so I ask you today to connect. I ask you to come together to dream of what we can be, to plan for our life together. I ask you to return to what your blood and bones have always known: that you are not alone, that you are never alone. That you are always and eternal in ways that will live longer than statues carved into stone.
You are a unique and irreplaceable part of why WE are alive, and you are alive because your ancestors knew that. You will survive, you have survived. We all will survive together. Because you are us and we are you.
This stellar writing is now inside me, also powering all of those interconnected organs and tissues and cells and blood as much as food or sleep does. It's bringing me home (on a day when we might well feel disconnected) to remember that connection is, always has been, and will be the engine of our collective liberation. Thank you.
What a timely reminder that we have survived. And good advice to connect.