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That which isn’t good for the hive,
isn’t good for the bee.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.54
Y’all, seriously… when I was a kid, before I knew they no longer existed in the swashbuckling kinda way, I desperately wanted to become a Musketeer. Seemed like a logical profession for a kid from a French-influenced place, right? I ran around the neighborhood, enlisting the aid of my friends, running down service alleys, seeking injustices to make right, and at every opportunity during our pretend play saying “All for one, one for all!” Why? Because it’s what the musketeers say.
Today, while reflecting on one of the core lessons this month, sympatheia, I believe I might have had a deeper reason for wanting to be a musketeer. Sure, who doesn’t love swordfighting, shooting, and saying sassy things at shitty people? But I believe I wanted to be a member of this brotherhood because I was an only child, and while introverted, I was often lonely. I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself, and I wanted the people who make up that something to care about me just as much as I did them, and be there for me en masse if I needed them. I didn’t feel I had that kind of security when I was a kid.
As someone who is now on the verge of five decades of life, I no longer want to be a musketeer. No, those times are long gone; however, I have never abandoned my quest for understanding interconnectedness, the heart-wisdom understood by Dumas’ fictional musketeers.
Truth be told, it’s an ongoing thing… and it doesn’t seem to get easier, especially when selfishness more often than not is what appears to reign.
What I’ve come to is this: It doesn’t matter if others “believe” we’re interconnected or not. I doesn’t matter that we can’t stop the great, generational atrocities around the world. What does matter is that in each moment we have connecting with another living creature, we have to opportunity to connect to the greater all, and experience the ties that bind us to it through one another.
Let us be courageous like the musketeers.
Trust in our part of the connection to the greater whole.
Raise our swords.
“ALL FOR ONE…”
(See y’all tomorrow)
Today, while reflecting on one of the core lessons this month, sympatheia, I believe I might have had a deeper reason for wanting to be a musketeer. Sure, who doesn’t love swordfighting, shooting, and saying sassy things at shitty people? But I believe I wanted to be a member of this brotherhood because I was an only child, and while introverted, I was often lonely. I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself, and I wanted the people who make up that something to care about me just as much as I did them, and be there for me en masse if I needed them. I didn’t feel I had that kind of security when I was a kid.
As someone who is now on the verge of five decades of life, I no longer want to be a musketeer. No, those times are long gone; however, I have never abandoned my quest for understanding interconnectedness, the heart-wisdom understood by Dumas’ fictional musketeers.
Truth be told, it’s an ongoing thing… and it doesn’t seem to get easier, especially when selfishness more often than not is what appears to reign.
What I’ve come to is this: It doesn’t matter if others “believe” we’re interconnected or not. I doesn’t matter that we can’t stop the great, generational atrocities around the world. What does matter is that in each moment we have connecting with another living creature, we have to opportunity to connect to the greater all, and experience the ties that bind us to it through one another.
Let us be courageous like the musketeers.
Trust in our part of the connection to the greater whole.
Raise our swords.
“ALL FOR ONE…”
(See y’all tomorrow)
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