Identity (part 3)
As we look at this ominous year, 2012, our technological, globalized world has ballooned to a population explosion of 7 billion people. That's one billion more people on Earth than only 12 years ago. With 150 babies being born every minute, our finite resources are being hoarded and squandered by those in control of the world economies and trade agreements. The forecast by prognosticators of prophecies - both indigenous and not - leans toward worldwide disarray coming to a head this year, resulting in either more coherence following more chaos, or more chaos, period. Governments are being toppled in the Middle East and in north Africa, the Occupy Movement in the U.S. is on the move even as law enforcement creates more and more barriers for public expression of civil unrest, China is on the rise economically as its people are still being oppressed while they fund two U.S.-based wars, and Greece was just bailed out by the European Union with, predictably, more bailouts to come. Overall, the transition of the Earth's axis, rise in surface temperatures, increased tectonic plate movement, and active Sun flares have certainly made for an inauspicious last few years leading up to this year, 2012.
However, changes are natural to the Earth. For over 3 billion years, She, the Earth, has been changing. We know from scientists and paleontologists the relative time frame of specific eras in which changes were extreme: when dinosaurs inhabited the Earth, the Ice Age, when humans evolved into our present form. The history of the Earth is written in and upon the Earth itself. We accept this history and these changes as inevitable across time. But when it comes to changing ourselves, our own behaviors, the ways we interact in relationship to the world, the resistance is strong. Perhaps this is because we don't see our ourselves in the context of "an era" of evolution.
Our personal experiences as individuals, the history of our lives, like the Earth's, are also written within and upon us. From childhood scars to the look in our eyes, from the way we walk to our manner of speech, much can be "read" about us without a word being uttered to describe the path we've walked. This is something akin to our vibe or energy and it becomes part of our identity, whether we like it or not.
If identity, as I've described in the three parts of this essay, is the culmination of who we are in totality, from our relationship status and job to our past childhood experiences, it is no wonder we are conflicted by the idea of change. And yet, we have no good reason not to change when this who we are isn't serving us or humanity very well.
We live in a world wrought with perceived individualism; the community is now globally remote. The adage - Think Globally, Act Locally - has never been more actualized. However, if we apply this behaviorally, in the context of identity, we are left with something like:
I Am What I Am - For Now!
(to be continued)
