In a world gone mad, measuring our sanity by how well we conform to what the world expects is madness. The world we’ve created for ourselves has long been plagued by wars and rumors of wars, misery, and suffering. Tribal identities wax and wane, empires rise and fall, novel ideas come and go, all of which is water under the bridge of the human experience. Against this backdrop, I’ve often wondered if our “saner” moments are simply those times when we are farthest from our true selves.

I think that most would agree that in this crazy world that we’ve built for ourselves, normal is not natural. It’s not natural, for instance, for a man’s value to be determined by his net worth. Economics are a human construct, an idea. It might be wrong, so why would we conflate value and net worth, especially when we are talking about the value of a human life?

Man has a hard time seeing beyond the walls of the world he’s built for himself because the answers to the deeper questions lie within. Life’s most profound, yet most basic questions of identity and purpose—who am I, why am I here, where are we going—are not answered by study, but by revelation. Given that we tend to confuse selfishness for looking inward, these questions have gone largely unanswered in human history.

Compounding this is the fact that we tend to see differences, that is, lines of distinction, as being primarily that which separates one from another. Can we not recognize that that which divides also connects? Our differences are the very thing that enjoin us and despite our differences—of opinion, of belief, of color, etc.—every individual human being is a member of the one body of humanity. Even the earth, our beautiful, unique home, is one of trillions of celestial objects that make up the universe. Wholeness and unity are natural, whether or not they are seen to be normal by man.

The march of human civilization is marked by the evolution of ideas. Old ideas give way to new ones, which are typically recycled old ideas. We cherry pick the past and pride ourselves on our innovation and creativity. Such is human pride! To my mind, we should stop trying so hard to conform to this crazy world, breath out, and let go of the desperate attempt to make something of ourselves, so that there is room for us to be ourselves.

Photo by Paul Gilmore on Unsplash