114. Hello Other Me!

The Aleut people traditionally greet each other saying “aang waan”, which means “hello, my other self”!

In Okinawa you greet someone with “Ichariba chode”, which means they are already your brother or sister, even if you are meeting for the first time!

The spirit of the expression “Ubuntu” in southern Africa essentially means, we are of the same fabric, we humans! That which affects you also affects me. We are not “I”, but “we”!

“Go out into the world and find yourself!”, we say to our young brothers and sisters of the tribe. Instead, are we not wiser to say: “Find others! …and in the finding, come inside the wonder of who and what you are, WE are, as human beings, and ‘find yourself’ thereby!”

We are neurologically hard wired for empathy and compassion, for belonging. It is only very recently that humans have experienced systemic isolation, mostly in affluent culture.

To truly feel for another, that is what is natural! To feel for other lives…all other lives – the great symphony of assistance that all life is- even those lives that share and support us from inside, that is “human nature”! Not otherwise.

Children, who have not been conditioned otherwise, know this intrinsically.

So… Hello other me! Thank you for being you. In me you are free!

~PAZ