Suspended Together

The minute I connect to the internet I enter a space, which though not visible to the eye, is filled with enormous activity.

Going “online” is an entry into a web of interlinked connectivity and information. Navigation in this space has to be learnt, but once mastered, opens the door to a world of connections and information.

This ever-growing web of interconnectedness is suspended, as it were, over all that takes place in the world today. We are reminded of what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called the noosphere. In 1959 he wrote that technology was creating “a single organized membrane over the earth”.    

Not only is this web of interconnectedness suspended, but the minute we crawl into it we become suspended together.

“Suspended together” is also the title of an artwork recently featured in the exhibition entitled “terminal”, which I visited in Dubai. The artist is Manal Al-Dowayan and the piece created in 2011 is neon with black paint.

Although part of an exhibition focusing on air travel, this piece also spoke to me of the concept, which I have chosen to call here2here.

here2here is first an foremost a space of community, a place of the “we”, a place where we are “suspended together”.

At first, I used to think of this space as an in-between place, a place where we meet before going our separate ways.  In some sense it still is, but as advances in technology make connectivity and communication more instant and accessible, and with the advent of social media, this here2here space is also becoming a place where many of us spend a good part of our day. 

My physical state of being, my location, what I am thinking, or that which I would like to share with another, is available 24/7 if I so wish, with others sharing a similar stream.

A collective stream of consciousness is arising as it were, and is flowing even through hand held gadgets of individuals.

Suspended together we ride virtual waves, we hear the opinions of others we are only able to meet because of this space, and we are challenged to broaden our worldview.

Our electronic interdependence also allows cultures to meet. It is enabling the taking of a planetary perspective, the taking of multiple perspectives, and is encouraging dialogue with other perspectives. We begin to recognize diversity and at the same time we realize the need for unity. 

We are learning to develop empathy, as the “other”, we suddenly realize, is more like us than we had imagined.

Karen Armstrong, in “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life”, states that compassion means “ to endure (something) with another person, to put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes, to feel her pain as though it were our own, and to enter generously into her point of view”.

As we are suspended together, the heart is encouraged to open to allow this all in. 

The compassion so essential to a peaceful existence in a global world begins to blossom.