How many people do we see everyday? Every day, we interact with a great many people - from morning 'til night, we perform a myriad transactions with human beings around us, in some form or the other...but how often are we consciously aware of the impact these interactions have upon another?
It is difficult, sometimes, to remember the fact that each individual human being feels about their life, the way you feel about yours - that it is exclusive, of highest importance, and perhaps the only truly valuable thing in their possession - and rightly so. To one, another human being is an image - an image of their influences upon one - and the more intimate and varied these influences, the more this image means to us, and the larger this image is. It is, therefore, given the scope of the human being's interactions and remembrances of these interactions, quite natural to equate a human being to this image, this remembrance - but it is difficult to remember that the human being is a living entity, and not a remembrance, which in its very nature is dead, and incapable of true change. It is difficult, also, to be cognizant of the fact that an individual human being, at the present time, is a sum total of a unique set of interactions and influences, which makes it so that there has never been another quite like him before, nor will there ever be another ever again.
Given all these facts, one must think - what is one's influence upon another human being, however small one's interaction may be with another? For example, if I encounter a man in the coffee shop, and speak sharply or violently, causing him pain - does that vanish after that moment? Or is its effect quite unpredictable? I do not know this man - perhaps in that instant, he caused some irritation, which made me react in violence (albeit in speech, it is still the same violence - it is just that one's fear of physical pain and consequence supersedes the need to react physically) - but in doing so, how have I affected this human being? How do I know my transaction with him that day didn't cause him to be violent with his family, with himself? We therefore do not really know how our interaction affects another human being, because it is two lives that collide for a brief moment, and have their own destiny to chase - but what is to say this collision didn't alter one of these lives for good?
I have noticed, from when I was a child to now - there has been a steady desensitization of the human brain - we no longer pay attention to a flower, to the sunrise, or listen to the wind through the trees...we like to stay within our world of remembrances, experiences and images. We are no longer sensitive to another human being that we do not consider our own...and we are more afraid than we were before. We judge other human beings, as though they were static entities - judge them as villains or heroes, based on our personal (or sometimes broad) definition of what is right, and what is wrong. Be it that judging someone in your head causes anyone any grief other than yourself, doing so sets a pattern in your brain - a pattern that justifies violence and hatred. Violence, in the current context, is not restricted to the socially accepted definition of the word - which is to cause physical harm. No - violence can be much more subtle - a look, a word, an expression of the face, an underhanded comment - all this is violence, is it not?
In our interactions with other human beings, how do we remember that they have their own lives, full and rich with laughter, love, pain, sorrow, tenderness and grief? Is it as simple as just remembering this fact when we interact with another human being? Will this make us stop and think before we speak a harsh word, dole out a reprimand, or act violently towards another? We have all these philosophies about how we must love another, and love our neighbours - but it really is quite ridiculous. If we is really, deeply, honest - there is only one true interest in our lives - ourselves, and ourselves alone. This is okay. But I don't see why we have to cover it up with lies about compassion and love, and service to humanity...when all of it, in the end, is quite self serving. We needn't create love, or invent tolerance - because no matter how well-intentioned we are, these will be a farce. Perhaps we should spend our lives searching for that infinite quality, that immeasurable sense of beauty and poetry that is in creation around us - this seems to me the only truly incorruptible quality in this life.
So why talk about all this - the nature of man, his propensity for violence and conflict - when there is nothing really to be done? Maybe what we can do, is remember the weight of our actions - the effect a word, a gesture or a look can possibly cause - and interact with the world, if not joyfully, at least with this sense of responsibility.
You've heard this - a butterfly flapped its wings, and a thousand miles away, several weeks later, a hurricane was born.
