Where is Your Individuality?: A discussion of Who am I in relationships to others and the world?
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Warmly,
Ken
“Between us is the genesis of ability to perceive and respond to the complexity of this time.” Nora Bateson
“The past is all around us. Darwin’s biggest contribution was to show us that all individual organisms are connected through time.” Lynn Margulis
How many times have you heard or thought, “Who am I?” It is basically hidden but not unheard between the lines of every psychology book, biography, and romance novel. It is the backdrop for staged drama and introspective barstools. Nora Bateson proposes an ecological question to explore the search for selfhood: “Who can you be when you are with me?” This reframes the sense of searching for a definition of oneself with a positive slant of, “Hope lies in the very fact that as living beings we are wired for relationships.” A context that opens the door to explore what is being heard that lies between us.
An ecological framework, such as this, helps create a perspective beyond the world of content, which manifests itself in reductionism — the opposite of complexity. This is a means to enter the realm of contexts that are always interconnected. Put by John Muir, who describes “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” It seems obvious, yet as Maria Popovo emphasizes, “How can we know this and still succumb to the illusion of separateness, of otherness?”
When we share and communicate beyond quick hellos, a biological connection is felt, giving rise to a sense of “good vibrations.” The mistaken view of the sacrosanct individual can now be defined and experienced, if we like, in a context of synchronicity. A view that opens the gate to wider realms of interdependency. It is more than just connecting with others; it is an integral part of a universal entity of all living things and their connecting patterns that are more than the sum of its parts.
“How it is to be with me,” now flows with a myriad of emerging possibilities, similar to our species’ evolution. Ursula K. Le Guin taught us that “In most cases of people actually talking to one another, human communication cannot be reduced to information. The message not only involves, but it is a relationship between speaker and hearer. The medium in which the message is embedded is immensely complex, infinitely more than a code: it is a language, a function of a society, a culture, in which the language, the speaker, and the hearer are all embedded.”
We are firmly attached, simultaneously existing through all the available contexts, or as Jenn Shapland writes in her book, Thin Skin, “If we extend our idea of family beyond the individual to the wider world of creatures and ecosystems, we can begin to ask what we want for them. From them. We can begin to see ourselves in relation.” There is much to be learned when we relate to the sounds and movements in forests, meadows, and ponds as well as street corners. Imagine tuning into what reaches out to us, those infinite situations that are waiting to be shared.
It may not be easy at first for those who have been ingrained in a cause-and-effect philosophy to grasp and comprehend seeing themselves as being interdependent with all that makes up our world. It can undoubtedly bring up a “fight or flight” urge to defend “who am I ?” as separate and unique. But this very response is programmed in our prevalent Western culture’s indoctrination, which defines our educational, political, and medical establishments, driven by rigid institutional psychologies that are antithetical to basic human needs. This can be clearly seen in the increasing contemporary need for our vagus nerve to be more secure, as it manifests its drive to be compassionate in reducing societal stress, which could very well be the core of asking “who am I?”
Rephrasing that question to “how is it to be in relationships ?” expands our ability to address conflictual divisions better, originating from those ever-present paradoxes in our lives. Creating forums for mutual learning expands the capabilities of individuals to dissolve imposed opposites that perpetuate polarization and/or the submission of others. In truth, conflicts can be the grist of aesthetic outcomes.
This awareness opens the door to what Dr. Martin Luther King so eloquently stressed, although not totally achieved, regarding human interactions and their consequences to our environment: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
The mission to answer “Who am I?” invites us to be in dialogue with each other and all living entities to embrace mutuality. It is an opportunity to blend in harmony. It starts with a prompt, “ How can I redefine my sense of self in relationships?” In doing this, consider what Maria Popovo suggests regarding, “So much of the beauty, so much of what propels our pursuit of truth, stems from the invisible connections — between ideas, between disciplines, between the denizens of a particular time and a particular place.”
I want to explore what collaborations between us and nature to mitigate the imposed divisions that perpetuate adversarial pain. Stepping outside of our sense of individuality allows us to refute the stifling cultural restrictions of the word or map not being the thing or territory. This is the segue to poetry and improvisational enlightenment within our interdependency.
That which is in-between
it is the revising essence that’s in between us and nature,
be it a tree, a twig, an earthworm, a friend, lover, or yet to be known,
it is messy, glorious with many textures,
it has taste
it has visual stimuli
it is the good and the bad,
it is what’s in the middle of the therefore and thereafter,
an abductive space where all kinds of possibilities can emerge
hidden but ready to evolve
to mitigate the hug to distance
only to come back in a form
where nature absorbs you into her life
Kenneth Silvestri © 2025
