A relationship with another person, even one of long standing, with a friend, colleague, even a spouse, can seem so strong but, in reality, be so delicate. It is important to recognize this. We expect emotional ties to bear so much, to tie people, families, groups together. But emotions are just thoughts, feelings, and sensations. They are ephemeral; like air, they can be moved or changed so easily.
I look at my wife, Linda, and realize how much better my life is because of her. I think more clearly and gain new perspectives because we talk so easily together. The more I feel love, appreciation, and gratitude, and the more I allow her in, the more I enjoy my day. Yet, despite all that, sometimes I lose it. I don’t feel the connection. I feel what I feel and think what I think but what she feels, or thinks is beyond me. I relate to her as if she were a means to an end, my own projection, simply the source of my own satisfaction, or pain. I mentally accuse her of being the cause of what hurts me.
And then I become aware of what I’m doing. I feel our separation, the fragility of our life together and how easily I could lose her. I shudder and wake up.
Society is also a relationship. Of course, there’s more to it than that, just like there is more to a marriage than emotion. There’s history, commitment, often there are children, homes, possessions, and for a society, institutions, buildings, roads, laws, and social processes. But what do any of these mean without the sense of relationship?
We spend most of our time each day in human constructed environments with other human beings. The beauty and necessity of our cooperation with others surrounds and envelops us. Yet often we lose it. We treat other people as means to our own ends. We treat cashiers like the machines they control. We treat other drivers as obstacles to pass. We treat people we barely know with the briefest of recognitions and people we don’t know are ignored or worse. There are so many people around us. How can we do anything else?
The more we harden our personal borders and think of ourselves as separate from others, the more pain we feel, and the easier it is to go from indifference or ignoring others, to hurting.
Or to lying to ourselves. Telling and recognizing the truth means getting as close as we can to what’s real, what is happening in ourselves and the world. A lie hides and distorts, pushes away what’s real, by intent. It substitutes a fiction, an idea for reality. Of course, it can get complicated. I don’t know if it’s best or not to always tell the truth. But in general, knowing and speaking the truth, or knowing as best we can what’s actually going on in ourselves and others, fosters healthy relationships. When problems arise, as they must, we can only face them if we notice them. We can only face what we allow ourselves to perceive.
Hate is another way we distance ourselves from and lie about the reality of others, and convert real, whole people into fictions, mere characterizations of a threat or a monster. It grows in the soil of fear, and is addictive, destructive and violent by nature. To keep itself alive, it requires that we re-sever over and over again the bonds of a shared humanity and community. It is the death of empathy. And the violence of its nature easily transforms from emotional to physical. It is both personal and systemic. The only fellowship it allows is one of corrosive ignorance, fear, and grievance.
President Biden in his recent and heartfelt talk in Buffalo, NY, after the terrorist murder there of 10 people, all of them Black, called white nationalism and racism a poison. He spoke with the words and feeling I want from a President. And I agree with him.
Research over the last 50 years has revealed that the more stability and interconnectedness there is amongst a group of people, the more they have a sense of community, the better their mental and physical health. The greatest predictor of heart attacks, strokes, colds, and other illness is social disintegration and isolation and the lack of meaningful relationships. The more the focus in any group is on “getting and using,” craving wealth, power and using others in that pursuit, the more depression they feel, the lower the level of satisfaction and happiness. Of course, the denial to any group of political power, economic means, and respect also contributes to lowering physical and mental health.
And once you hurt someone, or a relationship breaks bringing it back together is difficult. Once a society breaks, it can’t automatically be put together again. When social disruptions and problems between nations or groups arise, as they must, they can only be positively dealt with by perceiving what’s real. By feeling empathy, care. By working as a group to better know and care for one another.
When I hear our political leaders talk about other leaders with obvious lies or malice, or I see in the news racist killings or bombings, I feel the fragility of human society. We can’t bomb a nation and expect it to become our ally and pull together harmoniously. We can’t kill or threaten to kill those we disagree with and label as evil and then expect peace to reign or a utopia to spontaneously arise from the coffin.
A political leader can’t speak maliciously about other leaders of their own nation and claim they only want a revived union. They can’t favor the interests of a tiny minority and expect the vast majority to peacefully accept the degradation of the quality of their lives and communities.
We live in relationship with others and our world. This relationship, and our very lives, is more fragile than we like to recognize. We must wake up to the fragility of these bonds. Only by increasing our ability to feel and think with a clear sense and appreciation of this relationship will we be able, as a species, to live well, and possibly, to live at all.
**This blog is a re-write and update of a piece written back in 2015. https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-relationship-of-all-humans-dg/