By Mandy X. Hu
The rumble of the engine marks the official start of Sander’s sabbatical: he embarks on a solo motor ride journey for the coming months. I wave him goodbye with mixed feelings, on the one hand excitement for his beautiful adventure and on the other hand an unsettling hollow sensation in the pit of my stomach. I define the sensation as fear of separation.
I ponder over this sensation over the next days and come to the conclusion that this is the mother of all fears. Every single small and big fear – may it be fear of death or fear of public speaking (fun fact: the Bruskin study showed that public speaking was more often selected as the greatest fear than death) – comes down to being afraid of being rejected, excluded, alone, and thus separated. Evolutionarily, it makes sense why we’re so afraid of separation. We are herd animals and our survival as a species relies on social bonds.
Is this our fate then, to always have loneliness and separation lurking in the shadows, waiting around the corner? As I ask this question internally, an almost forgotten quote of the Dalai Lama emerges as an answer: ‘I never feel lonely, because I have a deep sense of connection with others.’ And this comes from a person who is exiled from his home country, moves from place to place, and because of his monastic vows may never have romantic or sexual relationships. If the Dalai Lama can overcome fear of loneliness and separation, so can we, right? ;p We just have to cultivate a deep sense of connection – and here’s how.
Physical connectedness
In a world of human conflict, polarization, and discrimination, many of us have forgotten how much we look alike. We distinguish ourselves and others by gender, skin color, aesthetic appearances, but truth is that all human beings are about 99.9% genetically identical. And even with other species we have more in common than we think. For instance, we share about 60% of our genes with Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly. To go a step further, we also share 60% of our genes with a banana. And we are made of the same building blocks. Our molecular overlap with that banana is around 80%. During our life, and certainly after death, our molecules are in a process of being recycled back into the world and the universe. So what I’m trying to illustrate here is that we only have the illusion of physical separation and differences, because our molecules are temporarily bonding together in a specific way, but truth is that we are similar and always connected to other human beings and beyond.
Universal values and longings
Besides physical connection, all human beings share core values and longings. Again, we often forget, because of our perceived differences in behavior, culture, and religion. Yes, perhaps there are many differences in the specifics of, for instance, religion. But these differences are mostly on the surface. When we dive deeper, we see that the core human concerns addressed by religions, such as moral concepts of compassion and honesty, and the mysteries of life and death, show undeniable similarities. In the end, don’t we all value and long for the same things? It may express itself slightly different per person, like I get really happy when I get to wear my bathrobe all day – like today – and you may not, but under the surface it comes down to a similar longing for coziness. And we all long for connection and belonging. Precisely in those shared universal longings we may realize we will always belong.
Cultivate belonging
So how to ‘Dalai Lama’ ourselves out of feeling separate and lonely? By realizing how similar we are to every human being and how much we are part of this world and the universe. I am connected to Sander no matter where he rides his motorcycle, and I’m connected to you no matter where and when you’re reading this blog, and we are connected to the grumpy stranger in the subway who’s only one kind gesture away of showing a smile. And what if we actually make them smile next time? That’s how we cultivate connection and feel belonging.
‘I see our lives as water drops that briefly spring up when the waves hit the shore, only to fall back into the great body of water and become part of the whole again’ – Lisette Schuitemaker
Do you recognize yourself in this article? The PhD advisors are here for you. Get in touch with us for a consultation (phdadvisor@amsterdamumc.nl).