what matters most re: this entry, i think i was approaching it from the wrong angle. it might be pointless to ask how differently we would speak to others if every person we meet is a different facet of the same self. the billions of selves living and creating in all times happening all at once in different places are experiencing the full range of what it means to live, to be a cognitive being, a being aware of itself. i posed the question with the hope that finding the answer would be a path towards ending conflict, but the more i think about it, the more i realize that trying to find the end to conflict is absurd, because conflict is part of this constant, fluctuating process of a being learning about itself. it is the essence, and each experience, each individual life is necessary. to remove any one life, any conflict, any piece of history, would be to lose out on the value of the whole. it would simply be inaccurate, missing vital information. a file format that cannot be opened because it is incomplete. feeling within me this awareness of all the possibilities, all the potential, the vast range of people and lives and experiences and challenges and gifts feels like looking at photographs of the universe beyond earth. understanding deeply the relative insignificance of my existence with a feeling that is simultaneously existential angst (a product of ego) and relief, because there is so much freedom in insignificance. |