Photo by Bernardo Lorena Ponte on Unsplash
Can we find a way to embrace division and work creatively with it?
Imagine yourself in a corrugated box. Maybe it is the kind of box wine bottles are transported in—each bottle (you) in its own sleeve. The box is divided. You are divided from the whole.
There are twelve compartments. The box is one box but the sleeves separate the bottles from each other. Can you see yourself in this box? What part of the box are you residing in? Are you dead center? On an end? Perhaps you like one of the corners best?
There’s not a lot of room in this box. You are standing, feet planted squarely on the bottom, and you’re being transported this way with very little wiggle room. It’s stuffy. The box is hot. Claustrophobic.
Now imagine the box getting shipped across the country. Suddenly, you arrive in L.A. You step out of your sleeve thinking you will be fine in L.A., but L.A. is somewhat different than Topeka. It’s not that different, but it’s definitely not the same.
There are stores and restaurants. OK. This will bring some comfort. You might call an Uber to come pick you up and take you to a hotel. But once inside the hotel, you’re separated into a room. A door closes behind you. You are vaguely aware of yourself in proximity to other hotel rooms, but you’re separated from those rooms. You reside, for the time being, in another box.
This hotel is situated on a street. The street is marked on a map — an arbitrary drawing on the land. Someone long before you came to L. A. staked a claim to the land and put up markers to divide themselves from the rest of the territory. The land was fought for, purchased, or stolen. Divided.
Everywhere you look you notice division. It is in the atmosphere where the clouds filled with rain divide from the ones that are not.
On and on and over and over you find and recognize division.
You might think about the cancer cells in your body — how they are dividing. Maybe you think about the good cells that are replacing the bad. You think about all of this division as either good or bad.
Was it good that you came to L.A. in a cardboard box? I guess if you think about it — any vehicle that would have taken you there — represents some form of division. The train car is divided from the one in front of it. First class is divided from the third class. A car is divided from a truck. An airplane seat separates you from the other passengers. And on and on.
Your mind is like a corrugated wine box. It is like a train car. And it is like the map. It divides. Like the cells in your body, your mind splits into one of two camps. For or against. It will either think to build and repair or destroy.
The world, and all of its occupants, are part of a divisive universe.
We are under this impossible illusion that we can generate a unified existence, but this is an ideal.
One is one. But one is divided. One will always divide from the other.
Earth is an experiment in unification. Will the thoughts that separate you from your best friend destroy you or will you find a place in your soul for open honest conversation and exploration knowing you are divided from, well, everything?