Surely Everyone Else Is Disengaged in the Same Way I Am

Equally disengaged and disengaged in the same way are not the same.

Equal.  We can both be disengaged.  We can experience this directly, in our body. None of me shows up.  I feel unseen.  My voice is not needed.  We can see evidence in the residual artifacts.  Only a small percentage of the people present are talking.  If you ask, most people don’t know why they or others are in the meeting.  We can be disengaged to the same depths.  We can both experience low vibrancy in the relationship to self, other, group, nature, and spirit.  And, I suggest, we cannot, by definition, be disengaged in the same way.

Same.  Every human–Homo lumens—is unique in how life is experienced, in what is specifically experienced, in why one engages and interacts the way one does.  We might share generalities (we engage physically, emotionally, intellectually) and specifics about how the generalities combine (i.e., temperaments, specific lines of intelligence).  The properties that emerge along the way make each person unique, such as our own personality and life choices.  No two humans are the same, in the particular way they each engage in life’s most important and mundane questions.

If we are equally disengaged and not the same, then I should not assume that the pathway to engage–to get out of being disengaged–is exactly the same for all of us–which usually looks like what I want for me to engage.  Then, if I want us to be engaged, I need to inquire, to find out what is happening in the experience of these others with whom I want to experience being engaged.  From that understanding, it is often quite easy to find a way to engage all of us.

Another way of understanding this is to think about what engages each person and how we experience engaged people.  If Homo lumens is already engaged, then it must look different in the unique gifts and contribution each person develops and contributes, as they tangibilize their own potential.

So maybe, nobody is disengaged in the same way I am, and a more interesting exploration might be to inquire into how we might individually engage in our unique experience together.