In-ter-con-nect-ed-ness.
A long word with six syllables. Within itself, it has the even taller responsibility of saying that everything that surrounds us has threads coming out that extend and touch others. In the physical realm, the notion of interconnectedness is indeed true.
At the basic level, everything after all is made of atoms. They might transform from one element into another, or may transform into energy, but in one form or the other, their existence continues.
I may look different from the stars and galaxies that twinkle above in the deep blueness of the night sky, but I am made up of the atoms that were once cooking in the bellies of their ancestors. It is their death that I owe my existence to. If stars were not born, used the alchemy of transformation of atoms to sustain their life, and when the time came, died, I would not have existed.
I owe my existence to the stars that lived in the past and illuminated the sky above for someone else to see.
Twenty-five years back, when my father passed away, and following the Hindu rituals, his body was burned on a pyre, all the atoms that were in his body were dispersed in the air or became part of the ashes that we disposed of in river Ganges. It is conceivable that some of his atoms are now part of my body. In a way we are still connected.
Very possibly I also carry some of the atoms from the giants of human civilization that have lived before me, but that does not make me any wiser. That might as well be because I also carry traces of the greatest tyrannists also, and it would not be comforting to know that some of their traits rubbed on me.
Not too long ago, it was also in the news that the trees in the forest that stand tall like proud individuals, underneath the soil connect and communicate with each other. The old father and mother tress help the ones who are struggling to survive and cannot reach upwards to catch enough rays from the sun.
A healthy patch of forest is also a thriving ecosystem where under the façade of tranquility, a lot of buzzing activity takes place that interconnects various biological forms. It is their interdependence and interconnectedness that allows e forecast as a single entity to live and thrive.
A similar interconnectedness can also exist between the artifacts we carry in our portfolio of engagement, and having so has numerous benefits.
Let us take an example from my playbook.
There are several activities that I have curated as part of developing a framework for living with a specific purpose in mind. To do that, the yardstick against which activities are measured is whether they help me realize what I value.
One thing I value is the feeling of being creative. In my previous vocation, getting ideas to follow in my research, or coming up with a new approach to analyzing the data that is available to all, always made me feel thrilled. The days those ideas came always made me feel that my day was well spent.
The same sense of thrill and achievement I also get when discovering connections between seemingly unrelated aspects of knowledge, or when writing and seeing an article slowly take shape as more words get assembled.
With that innate value I have one of the activities in my PoE is writing. Writing, however, needs more than just words. Writing needs ideas and experiences to sustain itself. Where do those ideas come from?
A source for ideas for writing is reading .
We may not realize it, but reading is a highly leveraged activity. The author of what I am reading spent lots of time learning and researching what is written. The author has given me the opportunity to benefit from their time and effort.
Travelling is another reliable source of experience. Being out of our comfort zone, being at a new place, always brings new experiences that we can collect in the folds of our memories, never knowing when they might come handy in finding a personal story to connect with.
Writing also brings up further ideas that could be followed up. When one piece of writing ends, it opens the doors for another. If completing one article gives ideas for two others, I will be in business and will not face my fears of finistophobia.
In the end, different activities in the portfolio of engagement – reading, writing, traveling – feed and connect with one another.
If I were to be liberal with my interpretation, other activities I have can also be put in the same portfolio of engagement and have the intentionality to realize what I value, i.e., creativity. These activities would be exercising daily and eating well to keep healthy; developing the habit of being mindful so I can be aware of the present and fully experience what is happening around me.
Being healthy allows me to do all what I value; being mindful allows me to curate experiences that could be part of writing.
In all, connectedness, and feedback between activities in my portfolio of engagement creates an ecosystem that very much helps sustain realize what I value. It is carrying on those activities that also have an identity and purpose.
It is the same connectedness that links me with stars and galaxies in the past, that links me to what all exists.
And there are many podcasts on spirituality that also tell me that it is not only in the physical realm that we all are connected, the same is true in the realm of thoughts.
Ciao.
Summary
Interconnectedness and positive feedback among organisms are essential for a healthy and vibrant ecosystem.
A similar interconnectedness can also exist between the activities we have in our portfolio of engagement, and having so has numerous benefits.
Interconnectedness between our engagements gives meaning and purpose to individual activities and helps sustain a vibrant ecosystem in our portfolio of engagements.
At the center of the web of connectedness sits our values.
Related
Building a framework for living #1: Becoming aware of mortality
Building a framework for living #2: The basic premise for its need
Building a framework for living #3: Follow the advice from stoics
Building a framework for living #4: The basic principles
Building a framework for living #5: Working with the fundamental unit that makes a life
Building a framework for living #6: The alchemy of fulfilling days
Building a framework for living #7: The yardstick for fulfilling days
Building a framework for living #8: What makes a day anyway?
Building a framework for living #9: A strategy to make a day well lived
Building a framework for living #10: Choosing right engagements to make a day well lived.
Building a framework for living #11: Need for aligning engagements with our values
Building a framework for living #12: Other consequences of portfolio of engagements
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