General
“We build too many walls and not enough bridges” – Sir Isaac Newton
05
May
May
“We build too many walls and not enough bridges” – Sir Isaac Newton
I originally found this quote whilst looking for some inspiration and a way to portray a photo of balancing on a bridge for my social media page. These words resonated on so many levels more now than ever. We are intent on building walls to protect what we have and separate when the goal is actually the reality of ‘union’.
- First of all it is good to look at why it helps to divide things in the first place by sticking a positive spin on it. We divide things into small manageable chunks in order to understand concepts. If we were to try and look at the big picture straight away we wouldn’t have a clue, as it is too much too quick. The problem is that once we have grasped these concepts we then struggle to drop them back into the jigsaw to see the complete puzzle. In life we see everything as separate entities when in-fact everything is one and has a very common link … energy! Division is that … dividing a whole into many pieces in order to put it back together again.
- I see the majority of ‘fitness’ focusing on movement patterns that revolve around isolation, rather than utilizing integration and flow and treating the body as a complete knitted unit. As we learn more and more about fascia and the web of tissues, that are entwined with a highly efficient neurological network that governs our every move, we need to adapt with this knowledge to develop rather than regress hundreds of thousands of years. An understanding is needed to see that even skin isn’t a barrier as it is basically a semi-permeable membrane to the world around us, which is fundamentally part of the universe.
- Walls between countries are put up in order to monitor taxes, societies, borders etc. The walls are not always the problem though it is the communication between communities as we fight for ever depleting resources in a world where the population continues to expand. Wars are then fought due to the inability to communicate and share, fuelled by greed and believing that a different race, religion, culture or skin colour makes a difference to the people we are. The problem is the corporations and the societies we reside in, that make us believe we are different and that the ‘others’ are not the normal ones … this concept is sticking an imaginary wall up where there is no wall, where’s the bridge?
- Walls are created daily, seen through the application of religious beliefs which are morphed to suit the underlying desire at others detriment and all because we cannot communicate well with others in a world where communication is the most advanced it has ever been. Why? … because we keep building walls!!
- Walls are easy to build; you just keep stacking material on top of itself until it becomes a physical barrier. You can draw a line in the sand between two crowds and everyone hesitates to cross it or you say ‘I can’t do it” which is a mental wall. Bridges are far harder to build you need to set the foundations and work specific angles to get to the other side of the river, road etc. You have to give and take, understand that building bridges takes time, see that the architect’s will have different opinions and different strategies and all of which may be potentially right. The end result is different between the two though, traffic flows, people get where they want to go and we create a bridge that joins communities and unites rather than separates.
The more philosophers and astronomer’s I study, the more I see and feel how the body moves and how energy transfers through matter and space; the more I see walls do not allow us to move forward but cause us to step backward. When reaching a wall on a mental level we hit a ‘Break-Point’ … this is the point we must break through and understand that the wall we have approached is a stepping stone and not an impenetrable barrier, sometimes all that is needed is a little more study and effort.
Bridges link things together and make previously impossible tasks possible. Yoga means union … and even the teachings of yoga are broken down into sections but with the constant intention of “uniting” these paths together (think of the spokes in a wheel … they all lead to the central hub).
If we must build walls keep them low enough to see the over the top so we can all appreciate the view, so we can communicate to others and when those walls seem to high we do what communities have done for thousands of years … stand together and build bridges over those walls. Share knowledge and see we are all in this together because …
Article by David Tilston
“The meaning of life is to find your gift, the purpose of life is to give it away.”
– William Shakespeare / Pablo Picasso
