I have come to have this feeling of cosmic interrelatedness with everything. This is the realization that none of us are who we think we are. Many of us think of ourselves as individuals, as having our own will, as having our own personality, and of course, this is a valid perception.

But just as it is valid, it is equally invalid.

We have such an elitist view of humans in this world, thinking that we are all that matters, and all other creatures, trees, and plants are just background scenery. We are the stars of the show, and ultimately all that matters – at least, this is how we conduct ourselves. Once long ago, we were the stars, literally the stars. We are made up of the same matter as stardust, and then once long ago, all we were was fungi, and then once long ago, all we were was aquatic animals, and then hominids, and then here we are. When we discriminate and cause harm to other species and treat them as irrelevant, we treat the very process of that which became us as irrelevant. We undermine our own evolutionary history and its importance when we undermine these living beings. Thus, we must engage the minds of ourselves and our young ones in activities that allow them to see the common thread that weaves all life together. We need to find ways to profit together collectively rather than profit off one another, ending up stuck in bringing a net increase for one and a net decrease for the other.

We are not an island to ourselves – we are interrelated with everyone who has ever touched our lives. Without every person in your life and the environment and the planet, along with the sun and universe that keeps our planet in its place, you could not be who you are now. So we are just one tiny piece of a larger puzzle piece, of a larger puzzle piece, of a larger puzzle piece. And without you, you certainly cannot exist. Yet without every other piece of the universe falling as it did, you could not exist either.

Keep this in mind. Your personality is not yours, but a fusion or collection of all the personalities around you, especially those you spend more time around. Your desires are not all your own but rather a fusion of all those desires you see around you. Your individuality is not all your own, but again, a fusion of all the individualities around you. Even if you are the rebellious type and rebelled against everything you ever saw, everything the people around you did and believed, then your being is still a reaction or a sort of output to the input that was the rest of the world acting on you.

Don Miguel Ruiz (author of The Four Agreements, one of my favorite books) says that we are domesticated through our upbringing. We learn that it is good to behave in this way and not in that way. Most of those teachings have some reasoning behind them, but some may be arbitrary, contradictory, or even poorly reasoned or based on faulty information. The teachings of domestication guide our lives and our neighbors' lives, so it is difficult to escape.

You probably eat with a fork and knife, chopsticks, or some instrument in your culture. Well, some cultures eat primarily with their hands. To you, it may seem strange and off-putting to eat with your hands, yet to them, it may seem just as strange and off-putting to eat with an instrument. Your surroundings, context, and environment helped make you who you are. We all know this, but we tend to give too much credit to who we are as unique individual beings. Just keep in mind that who you are as a unique, individual being cannot be examined as something separate from the society that has helped create who you are.

Sometimes I feel that I am directly connected to some great individuals throughout history, many who are well known and respected by most people. Perhaps this is not as crazy as it seems. Such great individuals and many others have shaped this world so much that their ideas have personally impacted what we see and the people we interact with. And so it makes sense in a way that I can see these individuals in others, in the life around me, and even in myself. I respect and revere such individuals highly, and I learn about them and live by the best of their words and actions, and so in some ways, I am them. I aspire to be them, I dream of them, and in a way, I am these great individuals and more. As a simple example, I often draw on their words and quotes, and I consider what they would have done when I have to make a decision. Then, I aim to do just that.

If one day anyone ever looks to me and asks what I would have done and tries to emulate that in their lives, I would say that they have succeeded in drawing on my life energy and that I have become a part of them.

Think of this. There is a limited amount of water on the planet. There is a limited amount of oxygen. Yet, these compounds, or at least the atoms that make them up, will circulate on this planet over and over and over. Thus, on the atomic level, any of us at any given point have the same matter in us that anyone in history may have had – from powerful or famous individuals to plants, to animals already extinct (e.g., the dinosaurs), and so on.

At the material level, all of consciousness is relying on the same elements – hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, etc. At the material level, we are all literally interrelated. We forget this because at any point in time, I am me, and you are you. But at another point in time, the matter that was in you may have cycled on to other lifeforms, and the matter of other lifeforms may have cycled on to become you. If you need a bit more elaboration, remember that we eat and go to the restroom every day – the matter that makes us up is not static.

Here is a quick story. The other day, I was arriving home after a walk, and I saw a small rock on the sidewalk. I just walked past it and went on home. Then I began to reflect on what I had done. I was operating on the assumption that this rock didn’t have much importance to me during my day. That was true, as this rock was never going to cause me any problems. I am still on the young side and healthy, and even if I tripped on it, I would probably be fine. Then I began to think of the interrelatedness of everything, and I realized that this small rock on the sidewalk could cause an older person to trip, fall, and fracture their hip. I realized that this small rock was connected to everything. Just as I’m connected to everything, so was the rock. Nothing escapes the nature of interrelatedness.

If someone yells at me without reason, calls me names, and tells me I’m good for nothing, this might affect my whole day. I might be put in a bad mood, which might ripple into spreading more bad moods to the people around me. That, in effect, may ripple out further and further in ways that are difficult to calculate.

Let’s go back to the rock. If I trip on that rock and fall and break my wrist, that may have all kinds of unwanted aftereffects. I may choose to drive even with a broken wrist, and then I may get into an accident and injure someone else. You see, one small rock can cause big, big problems.

Incidentally, on the universal scale, Earth is just a small rock.

The point is, we should remember that the little things matter, too. There is no such thing as a small rock. The rock is small in size but has the power to change lives, for better or worse.

If the rock stays out of the sidewalk, it is perfect. It is ornamental, it looks beautiful among all the other little rocks, it helps to delineate where the sidewalk ends and begins, and everyone is happy.

Don’t worry. The next time I left the house, I saw the same little rock at the same spot I had left it, and I put it out of the way.

We are all interrelated, affecting each other’s lives. Everything that impacts me ripples out and affects everyone near me, and then near them, and then near them. Everything that impacts even a small rock ripples out and affects everything near it, and then near it, and then near it.

Because we live in the internet and social media age, where information can impact people across the globe in seconds, there is great power in even the smallest of actions to ripple out and affect us all.

Sending a positive thought or comment to one person or doing something good can ripple out quite far. You may not see all those aftereffects of your thoughts or actions. But you have to imagine that they are happening because they are.

Live more consciously through all your actions and see that they affect all that is around you.