Dear World,
What do we want? This is the question I have been sitting with as I enter into my 26th year. When I look back at my own childhood dreams, I have no doubt Little Evan would be thrilled if I told him the type of adventures he was in for, or the accomplishments he would achieve. The global events of the past two years have given me the opportunity to ground into who I really am. I am uncovering the deepest of my roots. I am learning to craft my own story on what it means to be human. Despite the chaos, I will be forever grateful for the foundation these times have given me.
But now being in my 26th year, despite an assurance in who I am, I have begun to realize how unrecognizable the world is compared to the dreams I once had as a boy. Maybe I was a naive child. Maybe I was meant to learn the hard way about the cruel nature in which society operates. But in my heart, I know the essence of my boyhood dreams hold fabrics of truth. I can’t help but continue to dream of a better way, something I believe that all of us in our hearts long for.
How do we encapsulate the innocence of a child? There is an unmeasurable quality, a purity, that lives within children that captures the strings to our own heart. We see the beauty that is humanity, untainted by the societal games of fear and division, on full display through a child’s imagination and inquisitive spirit. That purity still lives within all of us. It is never lost, only repressed. You can gaze into the eyes of any other person and still find it, beyond any masks of fear they may be using to safeguard themselves.
When I look at the state of the world, I see all of our issues coming back to the same root cause: we have forgotten who we are. We learn from the earliest days of school that the world is cruel and punishing. Through our materialistic culture, we take on the same imperialist mindset of our ancestors, believing Nature’s cruelty requires top down intervention under the guise of safety. We forget we are an extension of Nature. Her beauty lives within us, but we unconsciously impose the same interventions to tame and suppress the creative winds.
With a shallow understanding of our roots, ideologies become identity. When we define ourselves solely by an idea or construct, anybody who exists outside of your own set of identity traits becomes an “other.” This is the root of all societal division. We all play in this game to a certain degree, as it is a byproduct of our conditioning to be attached to identity. Just look at the games of division being played out just in this moment:
Vaccinated vs unvaccinated
Black vs white
Democrat vs republican
All of the above are confined within the duality of identity, perpetuating the narrative that we are somehow separate. This is the same grounds that led to every major atrocity in human history. All wars, genocides, and totalitarian structures were carried out with the purpose to unite around one common identity. That goal requires an elimination of any unique expression that falls outside the tolerated framework. We claim to never forget many of these events, but here we go again down the path to creating a subclass of people we can label as “other.”
I refuse to buy the idea that this is a natural byproduct of the human experience. Despite repeating the same cycle of atrocities, deep within our hearts, we all know that a better way is possible for humanity. We know we can look within our own roots and see ourselves in every other being. With the same set of conditions, we would be the “other” we so desperately seek to control.
It is quite possible that none of our societal frameworks support this type of unity that I’m speaking of. Maybe the world we see is built around us staying separated. Or, just maybe, we can in fact integrate this deeper truth harmoniously with what we have already constructed. I will leave the way in which we can organize ourselves collectively to your own imagination. It will, after all, be a co-created reality.
But, before we can even dream of that unified world around us, we have to find that sense of unity within ourselves. We cannot continue to identify with the games of division. We cannot continue to seek safety from the creative forces of nature. We cannot continue to imperialize our own minds with the false promises of an equitable common identity. We must recognize the truth.
Your unique expression is a gift to this world. There is a reason that you are here at this moment in time. The creative potential that lives within you is of an equal force to every great mind that has been part of the human experience. There is nothing within life that you need to fear, whether that be a virus, an ideology, your neighbors, the government, or death itself.
As I sit here on my 26th birthday, with so much life to live and love to give, the only gift I desire is to see the world I know possible come to fruition. This gift starts within my own heart. It starts with burning down the foundation of my own colonized identity and beginning to identify with a deeper understanding of self. It starts by keeping a smile, regardless if chaos decides to spit in my face or bury me in the sand. It starts with a commitment to unity, and it starts now.
We can unify. We will unify. Consider these times to be the growing pains necessary to live within the world we all know to be possible. Feel it within your heart, visualize it in your dreams, and live your life in commitment to creating it in the world around you.
Love,
Evan