When thinking about cultures, it is easy to partition the world with thousands of walled fortresses. There's your castle. Stay in it. Here's my castle. Don't fire at mine, and I won't fire at yours. Fair? And we go on without interaction. We are at peace in times of complete division. Further thought turned this analogy to mush. Considering the nature of our inhabitance, it is physically impossible to live divided, to partition cultures. In essence, we are all apart of a greater, all-encompassing culture: Earthlings.
As ET might say after landing on this celestial ball, we are all the same. We are Earthlings, people who live on Earth. In other words, there is one fortress, and we all share it. Only ET and his friends account for a greater distance, a truly different fortress located who knows where. The rest of us, well, we are linked by our inhabitance. But this chain of similarity is longer than a single link.
The human chain links everyone across this Earth hand in hand on the basis of never-ending list of commonalities. We all share the same miracle of life. We all share similar emotions, feelings, and thoughts. We all long for love and pleasure, adventure and opportunity. We all breath the same air (some cleaner than others) beneath the same ozone layer. We all have roles in society. We all think. We all live. We all love. And I hope we all laugh.
From this perspective, our chain of similarities would out-link any counterpart. Most often times, people fail to see this truth. Others know, and decide to take it upon themselves to destroy its validity. Indeed, this chain is subject to separation.
What breaks a link? Hatred, war, animosity, secrets, scrutiny, pride, selfishness, malignancies, anger, shame, worry, fear....This list is unfortunately long. It's as if the object were to break the link that ties us together. For some, it is. But just as many feel moved another way. But are their efforts vain? Can a break in the chain be mended? Absolutely. Love, compassion, adventure, teamwork, cooperation, peace, calm, unity, compromise...This list is fortunately longer.
This chain has us all linked, all 6.5 billion of us. Down the line somewhere, I am clipped in. I see you, too. It represents Earth, and the sub-cultures of a greater whole. Everyday, the chain is under attack. Just as a lion attacks the weakest deer, so to does evil prey on the weak. Don't be the weakest link.
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