Separation

It is not novel to note that life is complex indeed, for most, contemplation of this complexity is the vehicle that propels us and twists our attentions and efforts this way and that. One layer of this complexity is in the idea of duality. But I am not thinking solely of physical, tangible duality, rather of the notion that we, and here I mean a universal we, are at once connected and separate.

As a child, perhaps, we feel this connection most intensely. We are attached to our parents, family, friends, cohorts, and cultures in ways that solidify life and place for and in us. We identify with and are identified by our place in life and don its garments and expectations accordingly. And often, over time, we can gradually lose sight of ourselves as individuals and seep into the cracks of place to the extent that it becomes us and we it. But what happens to us if we are extracted from that identity, through choice, force, or circumstance? What happens when we are untethered, separate?

As a person who has lived in several places and within different communities, I have had opportunity to think about this quite regularly. I have been a part of place and life here and there, and I have been severed from those places and lives as well. Was there comfort and familiarity in those places and lives? Yes. Was there pain in severing from those places and lives? Yes. But what grew from it was far greater than a life of place and complacency could ever have offered me.

I have found that it is in the pulling away that the vantage point expands to the scope that we are able to see our position in life as not limited to one place, one people, one culture. It is in the pulling away that we can appreciate and love what is right and good. It is in the pulling away that we can shed what is not best and nurture what is larger and more beautiful than one small attachment.

And in actuality, it is only in the separation that we can truly become whole.