Where is The Edge of Me?
One of the issues of being so certain of the change one thinks one wants to see in the world is that it is very difficult to discern where the external contexts end and our identities or selves begin.
Think of the snowy owl, whose physiology is reflected the context it has lived within for so many generations. To live within the structures of the modern world, and to find some semblance of health and sanity in it is to have an idea of who I am in relation to my contexts of life. Given that the patterns of life I need to survive are exploitative and extractive, some hard questions arise. I am very much like the snowy owl, catching my own sense of self from the world around me.
So, in that case, what is system change? What might it look like to allow the world to change in such a way that we don’t recognize ourselves in it? … And what might it mean for that to be a world of vitality, healing, and mutual care? How might perception of self in context be shifted? Would this allow all the relationships in the physical, emotional, intellectual realms of day to day life to reveal the needed shifts?
“How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me?”
― Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers