Every object with mass in the universe exerts a pull on every other object with mass, everywhere, always. You are, at this very moment, being drawn toward the chair beneath you, the walls around you, the person across the room, the moon overhead, and the farthest galaxy astronomers have ever photographed. At the same time, you are drawing them all toward you. Always.
This is simple gravity.
But the universe is not bound together by mere physical connection. It is connection that actively nourishes. It is connection that’s innately good and benevolent.
There’s perhaps no other word for this than simply love.
But while this is among the biggest, most powerful words we have, our usual notions of love are perhaps too small, too local, too conditional for what we are pointing to here. This is more than romance, more than friendship, more than any feeling you might have moment to moment.
This is a pervasive, boundless love.
The recognition that I’m in you and you’re in me.
The solace that even as life dies, it simply cycles back into the soil of the universe as fertilizer.
The flow of nourishment breathing in and out of all things.
The force that binds all of us together.
This is an excerpt from my upcoming book The Antihero’s Journey: From Burnout to Real Contribution in Polycrisis Times. To read other excerpts, go here.
