.

Life, actually…

.

THE RELATIVITY OF RELATIVES

 .

Where I am now is in this Deep South town, on an overcast, damp, humid evening. It’s the place to be. Even when it’s cold and wet, even when it’s dry and steamy, this is the place I want to be

.

This is the place I have chosen to live. That’s because I believe that everybody around me is related to everybody else in every humid, dry, cold and steaming town in the world. We are family.

.

Einstein was right. Everything is relative. What Einstein failed to go on to say is: Relativity is everything. In fact, relativity is everybody.

.

We are all related in some manner, a fact at once beguiling and frustrating, at times horrifying to think, and at times provocative.

.

If we are all kin, most of us don’t like to admit it except when it’s convenient.

.

Lots of us humans like to go on and on about how we’ve traced our roots all the way back to Somebody Famous Way Back When. Notice the farthest-back relative is always a historical figure?

.

Not only am I a descendant of that notorious being, I am also descended from the forty-first second cousin of a blacksmith’s assistant nobody ever heard of. I’d like to know more about him. Or her.

.

We all share common ancestry—and you have to believe that, whether you’re an evolutionist or a religionist.

.

So, if we’re all in the same family, why do we sometimes treat cousins and sisters and offspring different from neighbors, foreigners and aliens? Why is my lineage so much more interesting than yours?

.

It’s not only a small world, it’s a world interwoven with genes and bloodlines and ancestries. Unfortunately, it’s also a world of many fences and few gates, a world of defensive weaponry that can become offensive at any given moment, a world of more should-have’s than can-do’s, a world where the meek, though blessed, are often oppressed simply because they do not place aggression atop their priority lists.

.

Where is the good in the world, then, you ask?

.

Well, it’s like everything else in the universe–the good is here, you simply have to fade the bad stuff out for a while so you can notice it.

.

An audience laughing at the same humor is sharing a commonality that transcends the petty differences of the moment.

.

A village elder stopping to pat a small child on the head is making a quantum leap in time and without knowing it, is by the same act massaging the cosmos with a bit of kindness.

.

A fire fighter who suddenly and without thinking risks life and limb to save the life of someone who in normal situations wouldn’t seem worth the extension of a cordial greeting…is unconsciously affirming the fragile but extensive thread of hope that cobwebs the world and makes itself available at the strangest times.

.

It’s out there, the goodness. It’s out there, the fact that we are all cousins.

.

It’s not only Out There, it’s right here, in the Village of Everybody.

.

To embrace this enormous idea, the idea that we are interlinked, you have to either take time to notice it, or at least act quickly when the kindness urge strikes. 

.

Do it fast and well, so that you won’t have time to figure out why you shouldn’t be doing something so wimpy as generating an unconditional act of sweetness

.

 © Jim Reed 2022 A.D.

.