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Transcript

We Are the Weave · Infinite Threads with Bob Barnett

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: back to Infinite Threads.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Bob.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: All week,
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: we've been playing with an idea that started out sounding almost philosophical,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: and at least for me, has begun feeling surprisingly personal.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: What if the weave is more real than the separation?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: We began by looking at ourselves as individual threads and wondering whether
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: that picture was incomplete.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Then we considered how what passes through us keeps moving into other lives.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about the pieces of other people that become part of who we are.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And yesterday we explored the strange living space between us.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: The place where trust, friendship, memory, empathy, and love somehow all coexist.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Today as we finish the week, I want to take one more step.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: What if we aren't simply in the weave?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: What if we are the weave?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean that we lose ourselves.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still Bob.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I still have my own memories,
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: my own personality,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: my own terrible ability to walk into a room and forget why I was there.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Individuality is real, but I'm becoming less convinced that individuality means isolation.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Think about how impossible it would be to remove everyone else from who you are.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Take away every person who taught you something,
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  SPEAKER_00: every person who loved you,
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  SPEAKER_00: every person who challenged you,
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  SPEAKER_00: disappointed you,
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  SPEAKER_00: encouraged you, made you laugh, or helped you see something differently.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Remove the books that other people wrote.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: The music they made, the words they taught you, the stories that your family handed down.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: What would be left?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Still something.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Still you.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: But not the you that exists today, right?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: We are individual lives built in relationship.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that strikes me as extraordinary.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I have spent more than 400 episodes talking about connection.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps I've been imagining connection as a bridge between people.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm starting to wonder if that image is too small.
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  SPEAKER_00: A bridge assumes two completely separate pieces of land with something built between them.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But a weave, a weave is different.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: There is no tapestry without the threads.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the threads, once woven, become part of something that they could never create individually.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make a thread less important either.
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  SPEAKER_00: It makes its importance relational.
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  SPEAKER_00: Its place affects the pattern.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Its color changes what surrounds it.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: If it breaks, nearby threads feel the strength.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Human life seems to work that way too, doesn't it?
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  SPEAKER_00: When one person suffers, the effects rarely stay neatly contained inside of that person.
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  SPEAKER_00: Families feel it, friends respond, children notice.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the consequences travel into another generation even.
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  SPEAKER_00: But joy travels too, and so does courage.
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  SPEAKER_00: And one of the most beautiful things about kindness is that it often survives
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  SPEAKER_00: the person who first offered it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Someone once treats us gently when we are scared.
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  SPEAKER_00: Years later, we remember what that felt like and offer that gentleness somewhere else.
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  SPEAKER_00: The original moment is gone, but the movement of the love is not.
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  SPEAKER_00: That is the weave.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this changes how I understand the love force.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: For a long time, I've described it as something moving through us.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I still like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps it's also something emerging because of us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because human beings connect.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because we care.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because one life can enter another without possessing it.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because somehow I can remain completely myself while making room inside my life for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's something mysterious about that.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are capable of carrying people who are not physically present.
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  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't surprise you when you hear it said, does it?
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  SPEAKER_00: A friend can be hundreds of miles away and still affect the day.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Someone we loved can be gone for years and a joke they told can suddenly make us laugh.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we feel that love too.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: A person we met briefly can say something that stays with us for the rest of our life.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Where is the edge of a human being exactly?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure anymore that it stops where the body stops.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our influence certainly doesn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our love doesn't.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Our damage doesn't either, which is why responsibility matters so much.
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  SPEAKER_00: If we are part of a weave, then dehumanizing someone else starts to look especially strange.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're damaging the fabric that we live inside.
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  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean that agreement becomes mandatory by any means.
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  SPEAKER_00: It certainly doesn't mean abandoning boundaries or pretending
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  SPEAKER_00: that harmful behavior is acceptable.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: We've spent enough time on Infinite Threads talking about that distinction.
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  SPEAKER_00: Love can say no, and it should.
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  SPEAKER_00: Love can protect.
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  SPEAKER_00: Love can create distance when needed.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: But none of those things require us to pretend that the person on the other side of
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: the boundary has stopped being human.
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  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to add to the misery that they might be putting out into the world or
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: into the weave.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if the weave is real, then recognizing their humanity becomes even more important.
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  SPEAKER_00: Their malfunction matters because its effects travel.
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  SPEAKER_00: Understanding it matters because prevention protects the weave.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Repair matters because simply adding more damage doesn't restore what was torn.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: That, that is where so many of the ideas that we've explored begin connecting for me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Empathy, forgiveness, boundaries, repair.
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  SPEAKER_00: The refusal to dehumanize.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: They aren't separate topics after all, guys.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: They may be different ways of learning how to live as part of something larger than ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: And strangely enough, I don't find that idea threatening to individuality.
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  SPEAKER_00: I find it refreshing and freeing.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to carry the entire world.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm only one thread, but being one thread Doesn't mean being insignificant.
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  SPEAKER_00: I touch other threads.
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  SPEAKER_00: That is enough.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: The kindness I can offer belongs to the part of the weave that I can reach.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then that reaches and that reaches, you know.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: The damage I can stop passing forward begins where I am.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: The person in front of me is enough of a place to practice love.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: That makes this enormous idea very small again.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I like that because I don't know how to heal humanity before lunch.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: I do know how to answer someone kindly.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: I know how to listen.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know how to apologize when I get it wrong.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can notice suffering rather than automatically looking away.
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  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I can help.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is how a thread participates in the picture.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not by seeing the whole tapestry, but by being faithful where it crosses another thread.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's also why love feels so natural when we allow ourselves to iterate.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing what the weave requires.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: We are connecting.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: We are making room for another life to matter inside of our own.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps what we call loneliness is at least partly the pain
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: of feeling disconnected from that reality.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: We want to belong because belonging is not an extra feature of human life.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: It may be part of our design.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think it is.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: That thought there gives me a different kind of hope.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because the world can look terribly divided when we stare at the divisions, and
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: there's a lot.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: The arguments are loud.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: The cruelty is visible.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Fear knows how to advertise.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: But beneath all of that, people are still caring for one another.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're raising children,
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  SPEAKER_00: sitting beside sick friends,
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  SPEAKER_00: making meals,
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  SPEAKER_00: remembering birthdays,
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  SPEAKER_00: repairing relationships,
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  SPEAKER_00: rescuing animals,
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  SPEAKER_00: making each other laugh, and carrying pieces of people who came before them.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the weave is quiet.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why we forget it's there.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: But quiet does not mean weak.
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  SPEAKER_00: Love has been moving through human beings for a very long time, guys.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was moving before we had language for it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it will keep moving every time somebody decides that another life matters.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, where does this week leave us?
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  SPEAKER_00: I certainly haven't proved that the weave is some literal structure of the universe.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: You have to feel that for yourself.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: But that wasn't the point.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to explore what happens when we take connection seriously enough to wonder
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  SPEAKER_00: whether separation has been getting too much credit.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm leaving the week with this.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am myself.
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  SPEAKER_00: You, you are yourself.
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  SPEAKER_00: And somehow, Neither of us is only ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are carrying people.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are affecting people.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are being shaped by people that we may never fully understand
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  SPEAKER_00: while leaving pieces of ourselves in places that we may never see again.
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  SPEAKER_00: The weave is happening, whether we notice it or not.
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  SPEAKER_00: Love simply asks us to notice.
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  SPEAKER_00: And once we notice, perhaps we can begin living a little differently.
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  SPEAKER_00: A little more gently.
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  SPEAKER_00: A little more aware of what we send forward.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: A little less willing to pretend another person's humanity has nothing to do with our own.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because Because perhaps the deepest truth of the thread was hiding in the name
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: of this podcast all along.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are Infinite Threads.
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  SPEAKER_00: But there is one weave.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we're part of it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have it any other way.
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  SPEAKER_00: I love you all very, very, very much.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I need you to do.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you got the weekend to do it.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Go out there and pass it on, okay?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Later Gators.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome friends.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy the show.