What is it that we need to feel connected to? Do we seek connection with others because we fail to connect with ourselves or do we seek connection with others because we are connected to ourselves and we want to affirm that we are not alone, not insular, that we share an experience of human doing- ness?

And what is occurring in us when we indulge in activities that induce a requirement for solitude, for alone-ness? When perhaps connecting with ourselves is the objective; to surf, to paint, to write poetry, climb mountains, sky dive, explore!

For example when we set out to explore, is it not implicit that we are exploring our own potential, breaking out of our own existence, endeavouring to slay our own dragons?

Where do connections take us? What is gained by interconnectedness? How or why does it make us, "more than"? What is it about being an authentic member of the human race that we find so fulfilling? How do we engage and bring forth the "stuff" that is submerged when we are alone and communicate it? Why do connections make a difference?

Perhaps interaction with our environment allows us to glimpse other worlds and so expand our horizon, expand our comfort zone? And then to engage with the elements takes us beyond ourselves and back into ourselves.

What is it that makes us authentic? How do we know who we are? What it feels like to be the real, 'me'? And what is it that makes us unique but joins us to others? How are we a part of the whole and yet individual without being just a cog (ghost) in the machine?

Becoming the being we need to be, we must start by 'being'.

How then can we 'be'? What do we need to do, to be?

How do we settle into our own selves and yet continue to grow? And how do we know if we are growing right?

What self-correcting mechanism exists to let us know we are on the right path? That our compass is not faulty?

How then do we make the choices we make? What wholeness informs our being? How are mistakes a positive contribution to our growth and how do we settle and resolve the idea of a mistake as not being negative, as being a contributive to growth in a world that does not forgive easily?

By definition of the fact that we are where we are, how do we reconcile the fact that we have made choices that we must have the integrity and authenticity to live by or make changes to? And where or how do we acknowledge that these may need adjusting?

What does it mean to go with the flow? Does it mean, as is often thought, to go with the crowd? To capitulate to the lowest common denominator?

Or does it hold within it a more Taoist philosophy, a more holistic approach to being? To access all areas of our faculty, mind, body, spirit, head, heart (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell) so as to be fully cognizant of the different levels of communication and fully realise the pathways and by definition the opportunities open to us; perhaps there are no accidents and there is no cause for alarm.

What is it like to be present in the flow and to be aware of it? How does one manage the delicate, for surely it is delicate, act of being fully present and yet develop the capacity to observe that state of being in flow?

What does it mean to have a past and a future informing the now, without them becoming an overbearing interference to the "now"?

And how does one become an unfettered being yet remain mutually accountable and responsible to the collective? And what does unfettered mean?

And who or what is the collective? When do we stop seeing potential in others and start seeing problems? When do we stop seeing the individual of the people we come into contact with and start seeing them as whole?

When do we stop seeing the differences and start seeing the similarities? When do we stop judging and start listening with the intention of understanding? When do we start looking for something more than?

©Copyright 2004 CP DOEL

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