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  • Writer's pictureFrance Mayotte Hunter
    • Jul 10, 2019
    • 4 min read

As We Are

Updated: Oct 29, 2019

Truth is pretty elusive these days. Who speaks it, where to find it, what actually is it? Growing up in the 50's and 60's I took for granted that people spoke the truth, at least most of the time. I mean, you might tell little lies or be misinformed. But there was a sense that most of us did our best to be honest with each other.


Now, I'm not sure whether things have changed radically or I'm just coming to find out that there is no truth. Only the perception of things as we see them to be true. Is that possible? If so, people are awfully dug into their opinions of what is true and pretty intolerant of what others hold to be true. It's one big power struggle.


Climate change is a perfect example. How can there be such divergent truths about this, even among scientists? A must-see HBO documentary, Ice on Fire presents the situation pretty clearly, as well as an encouraging array of already-existing technology to reverse the trend of carbon emissions if we get on it ASAP. But no, others are denying the reality of human-caused climate change. And a significant portion of the populace believes that scientists' warnings about the impact of any increases in global temperatures are exaggerated.


And this is just the tip of the elusive-truth iceberg. So I did some delving into the phenomenon of perception. Of course we all know that everything we think, know, experience-- perceive-- comes to us through our senses. And we form ideas filtered through the lens of memory; related experiences that get stored in our subconscious for retrieval whenever a similar experience crosses our path. But there are so many things we come to know and adopt as memory that we experience in the media but have never really encountered ourselves. Fiction and fact have no clear boundaries. Reality gets jumbled and perception gets skewed.


Sure, terrorism is real. I think our lost innocence began with 911, actually. But we seem to be fear-based more than ever and it colors the collective unconscious and it spills over into all aspects of our lives. Anxiety disorder is at an all-time high. Children are taught to not talk to strangers. Nobody trusts anybody and life becomes about the worst case scenario. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.


Our belief systems are created on this foundation; one of pessimism and mistrust. Instead of expecting the best in people, we assume the worst. And we get dug into our points of view rather than accepting that reality is subjective and based on individual experiences rather than hard and fast objective truths. Self-righteousness, the fundamental belief that we are right, is the most dangerous of human traits. We only need to look at history to learn that lesson.


I think it would be interesting to get all of the world leaders together to make a list of unalterable truths that they all agree upon. What might these be? That all people deserve freedom and dignity? That all children should be given an equal chance to be healthy and educated? That we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us? We are, after all is said and done, the same. Human beings who want to be safe from harm, given the space to provide food and shelter for our families and a better life for our children. To feel the dignity of respect for adding value to the human experience in some way.


And what is our responsibility for each other? Not just ourselves and our families and community of like-minded people. But our fellow wo/man. How did we become so stingy with the scope of our caring? It is a lot to imagine tapping into our empathy for the suffering of others and taking responsibility for the well-being of the entire planet. I can barely handle my feelings about my own children, partner and close friends. Isn't it necessary to harden ourselves for the sake of sheer survival?


I think we each have a responsibility to know deeply-- both ourselves and our most firmly-held beliefs. Not the person reflected back to us, though that certainly factors in, but our true nature. Also it's important to look at our set of beliefs and really assess which have been honestly chosen and which we inherited by default; things our parents believe/d and those in close proximity hold as true.


At the risk of being redundant, I contend that these truths of our essential selves reside in and can only be accessed through the body. This is where our empathy lives. This is where we can tap into how we really feel about things. This is where our thoughts originate-- they come in through the sensory experiences in our body. What we see, touch, smell, taste, hear. If our minds are habituated to negativity, fear, anger and self-righteousness, we take the pure experience of the world around us and distort it, make it into something it needn't be.


I believe that we are bound in this life to fulfill our destiny, whatever that may be-- to become our best selves. What's the point otherwise? To mark time from cradle to grave? Doesn't seem like enough to me. And the only way I've found to access truth within ourselves is by finding stillness and listening to our body intuition. I've talked before about gut instinct (Gut Reaction) and the extraordinary design of our second brain, literally in our gut, that sends messages of truth from our body to our brain in response to the outside and inside world. All it takes is for us to listen.


For Sunday I'd like to perhaps present an exercise to identify our individual belief systems/core values; our most unalterable and non-negotiable truths. I personally will learn a lot from doing this. Such an inquiry requires time, commitment and an underlying urgency that we each must take up the challenge if we are to become our best individual and collective self. If we continue to be mindlessly dug into the world As We Are, we will only continue to widen the divide and miss our real chance for happiness and fulfillment.


“We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.”

Anais Nin



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