Both

    A thought.

    I’ll go ahead and say I’m not a fan of this version. If I can think it better, I’ll change it. But here’s the gist of it:

    The Earth is a single, unique planet AND The Earth is one of a trillion objects in space.

    It is both.

    You are a collection of millions of cells AND you are one whole human.
    You are both.

    You are one, single human AND you are part of a huge organism of seven billion+ other parts collectively called “humanity.”
    You are both.

    You are a unique individual AND you’re just like everyone else on Earth.
    You are both.

    You are your own master (free will) AND you are a product of the world in which you were raised and live (victim/result).
    You are both.

    You’re the same as you’ve always been AND not the person we thought we knew.
    You are both.

    You are both of a lot of things that seem contradictory. Call it the dichotomies of life. Call it the human condition. Call it the contradictions of scope. Whatever you call it, you need to get comfortable with it because this is how the universe is, how we all are, how “it” is. Contradiction is part of our reality. A billion things to make one thing which is itself one of a billion other things. The pattern is replicated throughout the natural world, our lives, our brains, our bodies.

    Your life is the memory of lots of moments. A forest is comprised of trees. An ocean is just a collection of drops. A movie is a bunch of still pictures. A solo is a series of notes. This piece is a string of words. And your thesis is a pile of garbage. (Oh snap! I done insulted your life’s work!)

    So what? Who cares? What difference does it make? I’ll tell you! I believe humility, true humility, comes from a recognition of the impossibility of being just one thing. And modern humanity’s collective myopia around “who we are” has allowed us, collectively, to obliterate our (only) habitat. But our collective effort, I believe, can still solve the problems we’ve created.

    But it can only happen if we (as individuals) act as a whole (one, powerful force) to make the place better “for all” (that is “us” as individuals AND “us” as the collective whole).

    So, if you think you’re just one thing, stick around. In a minute you’ll think you’re something else. When we lose contact with the whole we feel alone, a tiny individual in a huge, uncaring universe. When we get lost in the crowd (too much in the whole), we long for our individuality, our freedom, our one-ness. We want both, are both, all the time.

    I mean, sometimes I think I’m just a tiny little slice of fresh-baked nuttiness.

    And sometimes I think I’m the whole fruitcake.

    I am both.

    (Chomp!)