The Threads of Love

My name is Patrick Russell. But what am I? Am a singular entity, born into this world by complete random chance to make a mark (if I'm lucky), and only to die and fizzle away? Am I simply the collection of tasks that I have done and the thoughts and ideas that I have had? Or am I a self-enclosed potentiality of possibility, of future being? Am I just this body, of a particular weight and height, with possibly a balding head and, fortunately and the flip-side, the capacity to cultivate an impressive beard?

Perhaps... but maybe there's more to me, in a way that is not me at all.

Recently, my late-evening habit of listening to music from the movies Shame and Cloud Atlas, paired with a good ol' cup of hot cocoa, has been inciting this somewhat eerie, and partly mystical, calm in me. I slow down. I sit (either in the bathtube--the greatest think tank ever--or on my porch if it ain't too cold). I still my mind. I listen. I feel. I remember and reflect. I breathe, and I watch.

And quite suddenly, visions start hitting me--not ethereal, "hokey-pokey" visions, for I really believe all that to be somewhat malarkey. But visions as concrete realizations; visions grounded in materiality. Visions of you--my ancestors, my family, friends and even strangers; philosophers whose works I have read, actors and actresses whose performances I have watched and admired, and teachers I have had, whether my kindergarden teacher, my first basketball coach, or my gymnastics instructor (thanks for signing me up for that, mom).

And then this odd visual arises in my mind--I imagine threads tying all of us together, "weaved-up" into one big blanket that tells a grand but humble story--for all of us, the grand story of our becoming, our sharing, our fighting and our loving; and for me (and all individuals), the humble and somewhat miraculous funneling of that grand narrative into me, right here and right now. Out of the billions of choices, the billions of tiny events, and the billions of random twists and turns, you and I have come to be. Completely random? yes; but incredibly miraculous? most definitely.

The more I trace these threads, the more I not only travel our world, but the more I also begin to envelop myself in a blanket of relationships to "not-me's." I feel the thread of dependence between my hunger and the farmer who produces my food, the soil that nourishes those plants and animals, the rain that watered that soil, and the oceans from which those rain clouds came. I feel the thread of love between the spark of life within me and my family members who first saw me seconds after I was born. I feel the thread of indebtedness to all my friends, even the ones I no longer talk to--the laughs we had; the ideas we shared; the occasional fights that taught us lessons about ourselves and the nature of relationships; and the midnight runs through sprinklers in our underwear. I remember it all, for it has all coalesced in me, in this moment, in the contours of my body and mind. Every detail of every escapade, every word quietly uttered, every facial feature of every friend and every stranger with whom I made eye contact--I somehow remember all of it. And all these threads come together in me, the locus of millions upon millions of extensions and relationships to Others.

So yea, I'm Patrick Russell, 6'1" and 142 lbs, with a dream to teach and be an environmental philosopher, who has had a set of calculable and definable experiences. But I am also so much more, simply because of what I am not. I am also this tiny little stitch in our shared tapestry of existence. And what is a tapestry, if not the culmination of countless stitches?