On nights of deep reflection, i sometimes think about the ripples of influence that reverberate from our thoughts, actions, perspectives, & beliefs, and the way those rippling traces of ourselves have the capacity to touch the lives and souls of the people we interact with. When we connect with someone on a soul level, our mental and spiritual energy often seeps into the reality of who they are, and vice versa. If someone’s essence is red and mine is blue, the bit of them my soul touches becomes purple, and that minute trace of purple is then subsumed within the rest of their being, sometimes tonally shifting their entire character in the subtlest of ways- and vice versa.
It’s almost laughably strange to think about; as human beings, we pride ourselves on our strength, ingenuity, and dominance over seemingly every earthly force, yet we are so innately, deeply vulnerable to change and fluctuation. Connection is one of the most deeply-rooted, instinctive, universal human needs, and our need of it makes us the softest, most breakable of God’s creatures. Of all the factors that shape each individual human destiny, our connections with those around us are among the most significant determinants of our fate; for this reason, every soul we cross paths with has the potential to alter the course of our soul’s journey.
I find this to be one of the most wondrous things about the human being: to realize all the ways in which God has made us so easily touched, moved, and impacted by others. How many strangers have we shed tears for and lost sleep over after we read about their suffering in the news or in books of history? How much of our yearning to absolve the world of its pain and heal its endless divisions arises from the pain we feel at the grief of people we’ve never met?
When we ponder the lives of the most influential beings in history, we often find at the center of their work a particular teacher, guide, lover, or muse; at least one significant person who heavily influenced their ideas and breathed life into their work. No man is an island, and no one flourishes in isolation; all human brilliance is attributable to sources and influences outside itself. Every time we rediscover the words of one of the great thinkers, scholars, poets, and iconoclasts who left their immortal signature on the consciousness of humankind, we breathe new life into a legacy that spans thousands of years, the rise and fall of centuries, the days and nights of the perpetually unfolding dream of human life. Every time we’re altered by the ideas we take in, we pierce the veil of time and give each of our influences a sip from the cup of immortality.
Of all the abstract reasons to conclude that a Creator of everything must exist, i’d put forth the depth and potency of human connection as one of the metaphysical miracles that leave me most deeply certain of His existence. Something as profound and multi-faceted as human connection could not have been a mere biological happenstance; nothing short of Divinity could create such a complex and immeasurably powerful force. This aspect of reality- the abstract space wherein we connect with and influence each other- is an endlessly complex realm. If each human life represents a potential manifestation of the Divine, the intersections between souls are like threads from the eternal needle of God, woven together to generate a unified masterpiece that echoes the Ultimate Unity.
x r
Lilac Muse 