Can you hear me now?

For some reason, I have begun to feel like we need to communicate with each other using archetypes, concepts which have universal meaning, and which evoke emotional reactions.  The unraveling of our society, of the world itself, may be a result of a loss of empathy with each other, the result of our using our own distinct vocabulary when talking with others.  We may be speaking the same language, but words are drifting in meaning, being skewed by slang uses, trendy phads, txt mssg, and our own specialization.  When I speak of a duty cycle when dealing with problems, I loss 98.9 percent of my audience, whereas a person telling me about how their job makes them just chill all day leaves me confused.

Concepts like home, sharing, warmth, the sound of voices, a circle, a hearth, family, feeling needed, looking out for each other, hugging, are universal, embedded in our genetic memory.  These are things that we share, our common heritage, created over thousands and thousands of generations, the result of surviving in a hostile world, where sleeping in trees leads to fear of falling.  Not every single one of us has the exact same genetic coding as any one else, but we do share a great deal.  Standing around an open fire, eating together, laughter, these are our common ground, not screaming at a football game, shooting pool, or getting drunk.  We are all people, who have the same needs, the same fears, but different paths have brought us to where we are, and we cannot rely on our experience giving us common ground.

Communicating using archetypes is cumbersome, vague, and slow, but it proves that we are indeed similar in certain ways, and finding that bridge is essential in learning to share this existence.  Walk with me.