Going Over the Line

I’ve got some news for you and this may come as a bit of a surprise. You are not an American. You’re not Chinese, English, French, Mexican, Kenyan, Indian, Australian, European, Asian of African. All those words are made up words that serve one purpose and one purpose alone.

Separation.

Any time you label yourself by what side of an imaginary line you’re on then you’re separating yourself from the people on the other side of that line. What happens next? Suddenly those other people seem very far away. Those people on the other side of your imaginary line become less real and less human. They’re over there and you’re over here and you don’t need to care much about them because they’re not on your side of the line. And do you know what? They’re thinking exactly the same thing about you.

That is separation.

And why are we separating ourselves? I’ve got no idea. The idea of a political border, of a nation, of any kind of political state is not only a silly figment of our collective imagination but it also does us, as humans, a lot of harm. Now think about this: When your nation’s military goes to war who do you support? Even if you don’t support the war, which side are you hoping will in? Be it pride or nationalism or the hope that you can go on living comfortably in your own country as it is now there is something that makes you support your country’s soldiers. Will you support the other side? No.

That is separation.

But what you’re really hoping is that people who usually live on the same side of your imaginary line is going to murder more people on the other side of that line than those people murder people form your side of the line. Are you still supporting them? Of course you are. If there’s going to be people murdering each other then it might as well be you who murders the most. I’m not condemning your opinion because I tend to agree – All I want to do is make sure we’re clear on what happens when there is separation.

Because we have these different governments around the world painting their imaginary lines between themselves we have separation. On the one hand it unites everyone on one side of the line as one proud people. But why not be united with the people on the other side of the line? It’s just a line that isn’t even real. It doesn’t take much to move that line or get rid of it entirely. It’s a figment of your imagination and do you know what’s really bad? You didn’t even decide to imagine it. Someone has imagined it for you and told you that you have to imagine it too.