Pandemic Insights (I): LISTENING OUR FUTURE BREATH - by Sicopol

I would like to start with a confession. During this crisis we are all currently living, a part of me has been secretly happy to hear how figures of affected people were increasing in some places. Of course my stronger feeling was an honest sadness and worrying. But, beneath this first layer, a part of me was accepting a great human suffering as a kind of worthy sacrifice, if this would actually help to decrease the power of certain leaders who are not, in my opinion, ruling and taking decisions based in empathy, social justice and human dignity. And maybe this could also help the so called awakening of our society. Maybe you mirror with what i am saying or you just think that I have a hidden monster. Maybe both thoughts are valid. But, leaving aside a pragmatic discussion about its actual worth or not, or even the moral discussion about which would have been my decision if I had the power to control those figures, this activated a warning in my consciousness. And I think acknowledge this, bringing it over the table and express it, is (as it used to be) a good decision that already started to heal it inside me. I realized I was being moved by the same old patterns of what some called the Story of Separation. I was again applying the filter of good and bad. That filter of dualism we all use to some extent in our daily perceptions, behaviours, decisions, we could say that it is almost inevitable in our normal lifes. Or not. I am not so sure. But in this case this filter went too far, because It compromised my most basic humanity, my compassion. And I also realized that my ego was talking, saying : « yeah you see i was right, we, the ones that fight for a big change, a great turning, a most human world, we were right. The planet is fighting back, or God is punishing our soberb. » Don´t misunderstand me, I dont pretend to dimisnis the value of those statements, mainly becuase, in some way or other, I am agree with them. But we are approaching here a dangerous boundary that could confuse why or from which inner place we are doing and thinking the way we are, trying to boost the Great Turning.

For sure you have hear these days many clever minds of our times saying that the real virus we face here is fear. And fear can be shown in more subtle manners tan the most usually mentioned. I feel that fear is what it actually make us being uncomforteable with this pause. The first challenge with fear is make visible, being conscious of this fear. When a fear is unconcious our usual reactions are aggressive, competitive, defensive, selfish. When we are concious of our fear we take it as a warning to take measures for protection or mitigation, we try to cooperate. And of course when you do that, fear start to be reduced. However, this solidarity and cooperation is still driven by fear, and where there is fear, there is not love. So that is our next challenge, to be able transform that fear in love.

And fear is what actually create enemies. All the common message we hear about being in war, and be together against the virus, against the enemy, we dont need to be together aginist the virus, we need to be together, not matter what. The last findings of evolutionary biology support the idea that evolution is based more in cooperation than in competition, or at least in balance. Competition is useful to create skills or to encourage and measure the growth of certain capacities through testing it with someone else. But it is time to accept it is just a play. I like to say that life is just a game that worth to be taken seriously (Oscar Wilde plagiarized me afterwards though…honestly!). But this is not a battle game. We are not at war. At war, you want to destroy your enemy, or at least defeat it. But negotiation and understanding has always been a cheaper and better solution for all parts involved in any conflict. Let´s go for the win-win. Not against the virus or them. Not humanity against threats like if those threats had nothing to do with the same system that maintain our lives, from the way we are living and understanding life. Finding enemies give us just a superficial peace, because release us from our own responsibility.

Fear brings need of control. And we cannot survive anymore trying to control everything. A situation like this is happening when something not expected happens in a world with a political and economic system that is based on fear, and in a system with antropocentric and patriarcal structures that assume that everything can be under control.

Byung Chul Han says that after Nietsche death of god, is health what become a goddess. But of course he means the physical health of the individuals. We fear death and time running, we want to make it last no matter what, like if we dont´accept that it will come sooner or later. In Buddhism there is a connection between impermanence and love. Then when you wake up every morning is good to say to yourself, “Today may be the day I die”. Not accepting our impermanence and our declining as a physical individual, prevent us to be grateful and present. Because of fear, we understand health too much on avoiding death instead on living a healthy life in a wider sense. I am saying all this because in a near future we will probably arrive to crossroads where human contact and freedom will be in conflict with potential health risks. What if the solution is live one more year but not hugging anyone for the rest of your life? What if it is a just a month of your loved ones ? What would you do if every time you touch your partner increase the possibilities to die? I quite aware these questions are hypothetical, and that this idea could lead to a sensitive discussion. I don´t pretend to give us the right to play with anyone´s lifes. However, I am sure that, if we allow ourselves just a quick dive on this idea, we can sense a boundary somewhere. To find it is not actually important, but I feel it could be interesting to reflect on it for a deeper understanding of life, beyond the absence of death and suffering. And maybe someone will tell us that there is no other option, that we need to take decisions that will make our life less human for the good of our survival, because this world have its own working logic, which is not impossible to change it. IN that case we will need to decide if we accept it, or we trust that impossible world could be possible.

We lives times of uncertainty. We seek safety in whatever is certain, even though this certain is tough. And it reminds me of good terror movies. Best terror movies are the ones where you don´t even see the killer, there is no so explicit violence, there is a disturbing silence and a fake calmness, which provokes anxiety. And when these conditions are in place, the characters usually have two tendencies. Either they tend to feed their fear, transforming it in hysteria, panic attacks or blockage, either deny the evidences, forcing themselves to offer any explanation, finding balme in anything or anyone they know, or just saying that everything is gonna be alright. Sorry to say it but, we cannot have always the answer. We really don´t know if everything is gonna be alright. And that is fine. Accepting and embracing uncertainty could be a useful tool in order to face with serenity and clarity whatever is coming.

This uncertainty also affects to the ones who are looking for a big change on the system, for a big change in our mindset, in the paradigm. For being optimistic, when a paradigm is deeply question is likely a sign that this paradigm is near to collapse. But this uncertainty pushes our impatience, making us expecting a rapid turnover of things. And be aware of expectations, because they could cause frustration and even be counterproductive. Some of us are expecting not to become to a normality, and see the world changing in front of their eyes in the following months. I would bet the change will not be so visible nor so inmmediate, beside the new adjustments to the new normality that, ultimately, will be quite similar to what it was before. Don´t misunderstand me, I don´t mean we should stop working on the change, to continue pushing to make it happen. Something is already permeating and we shall profit this momentum. However, same as pandemics, consciousness evolution could be also understood as a system, and in any system there are feedback loops, which means that any change you introduce in an element of the system will take some time to have effects in its inner dynamics and consequentely, on its outer behaviours. But don´t worry, change will be effective and visible thanks partially to triggers coming from this crisis. We just need to met one m<in condition : leave our inner doors open. And fear is the one who usually keep them closed.

On the other side, when we acknowledge that a virus is not an enemy, we normally also realized that it is an integral part of the natural web and, if manifests in the way is doing, it could be a sympton of a deeper illness of the system we are part of. For example, virus transmission to humans has a lot to do with ecosystem degradation, because invading wilderness increase contact with wild animals, as we know. But even more important is the lost of diversity associated with degradation. Why? First, paradoxically, more species mean less quantity of animals with virus, because species control each others population, avoiding demographic explosions of eventually carrying virus. Second, and in a wider sense, diversity can be understood as the memory of the natural system. And the human system too. As much as we lose diversity in natural, cultural and social knowledge, more will be reduced the potential source where to find the solutions for future problems.

Tibetan medicine recognizes four main causes of disease: disease caused by imbalanced diet; disease caused by an imbalanced or unhealthy lifestyle; disease caused by seasonal influences; and disease caused by so-called ‘provocations’ or invisible, harmful influences (dön in Tibetan). Dön can include spirits, but also microbes. Infectious diseases are seen as mostly coming from dön. Spirits are considered he true owners of nature, so when you disrespect nature, they react. In fact, eating bats was forbidden as early as the 8th century, being identified as a source of disease. And leprosy, that was believed to be fundamentally caused by unseen beings living underground, is now known to be caused by a bacteria that lives in the soil.

Recently I hear someone from Tamera community, in Portugal, saying that how virus is spread was showing us how clearly we are one only breath. How interconnected we are. Now more tan ever, your health is my health. Even from the most practical perspective, we might think we’ll be safe if we have good health care, a healthy style of life and we don´t take unneccesary risk, but if the person growing our food doesn’t have health care or someone have no access to be tested no one will be safe or medical solutions will maybe allow us to be safe for this virus but not for the next one. And, as we saw before, now more then ever, ecosystems health is our health. What it seems common sense is that we can have a lot of benefits and little disadvantages if we adapt our interest to the interest of the earth and to the interest of the commons, instead of securing only our health care and our relatives´, or even our co-citizens. That is why an holistic view of health (the same and an holistic understanding of reality) is fundamental. Because promotes interconnectedness to create balances, memory, and action. In body, mind, ecosystems, human relationships, societies. And this does not mean only to give a place to the ancestral and traditional medicines and wisdom, or the « alternative » or natural medicines. It is going for healthy thinking, trustful social behaviours, and an attitude of openess and compassion that will allow the flux of systems move at any scale or fractal. And the best way to achieve this is through a profound comprehension of trust and love. We could say that creating this fields of trust is the best preventive and collective medicine. But not fear. Fear make us weaker. Biologically proven. Literally debilitates our body. So better save of vital energy, and strength our inmmune system, our inmmune social system allowing to be vulnerable, open ourselves and allow connections to flow. To heal the stagnat life. Let´s create a real sense of healing community.

And also let´s take advantage of this time of pause from confinement. Walter Benjamin said that deep boredom is « the bird that hatches the egg of experience...that without relaxation the "gift of listening" is lost and the "community that listens" disappears » And this is happening to all of us and simultaneously for some reason. I also believe that this is a message to humanity. Whose message? It is an interesting debate, but not that relevant in my opinion. The key question here is what is the message ?

There is a stunningly beautiful sentence from Arundhati Roy that many of you probably know. It says : « Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing ». I love how simple and profound is this line, and notice how the femenine is used. We all know that future will be femenine or won´t be. Well, in the same way i can hear in this time of human pause the singing of birds I never hear before because of the noises of the city, maybe we can try to just sit and listen. Listen beyond the silence, and try to hear this breath of the future world that is coming. Of this impossible world that is already on her way.

I use to joke about the couples in confinement, saying that any couple that, before the confinement, was in a time of indecision or blocking about the direction their relationship should take, for sure confinement will probably unblock this situation and push it somewhere else. Either being closer and more connected, either being more separated. So humanity is now a couple that is being « invited » to choose. More control and fear, or more vulnerability and trust?

There is another line from John R. Platt (or B. Fuller) that i am hearing a lot lately. It says “The world is now too dangerous for anything less than utopia.” History show us that impossible ideas become posible in moments of crisis. Maybe this is our chance for an evolutionary leap, and project the world that we like to imagine. Remember that quantum physics have shown that our thoughts actually modify and creates reality. Or we can continue with the same normality, fighting the next pandemic, the scarcity of resources and the social conflicts arising that will be from them, that are already arising from them. I see it everyday in my job. Therefore, we can continue with more and more pressure and less and less chances, or we can try to consciously address the source of the imbalances, agressions and inequalities that makes so many human and not human beings suffer. But be careful. These disconnections will not be fixed via fighting an enemy. It never did it before. And if it did it, it created new imbalances, new inequalities, new enemies. Because, at the end of the day, is coming from the same patterns and the same inner place. Fear.

Charles Eisenstein : » The crisis could usher in totalitarianism or solidarity; medical martial law or a holistic renaissance; greater fear of the microbial world, or greater resiliency in participation in it; permanent norms of social distancing, or a renewed desire to come together. »

Stay in peace. Stay in joy