Does anyone feel loved by their community? That was a real possibility once upon a time. The village doctor could come to be both known and respected personally for what he did for his community. In this day and age is this possible now? It didn’t have to be someone who’s work was life or death either, the village blacksmith could be just as much respected as the doctor.

Yes, it is from afar, through media. That separation gives you power and prestige, but no real connection. Can you love someone you don’t really know?

Not like it did when you walked through the streets and people nodded to you, connected with you. You may be ‘known’ worldwide even, but not connected. Your persona may be loved, but are YOU truly respected and loved? What is real if people aren’t real? How does anyone know they are real?

When someone says my name precedes me, it’s very alienating. It implies I’ve been judged without ‘me’ even being there. Reputation, the social construct. Does the social construct really need our input? If I stop participating, does the social me vanish?

Not at all. It might even get bigger.

You know you are real by the way you affect others. Yes. You have it. You know you are real by the way you affect others, and you know that by seeing it when it happens, by how someone responds to something you say, by how they react to something you do. Science has even been exploring this. Delayed reaction is innately dissociative. We learn to substitute a second hand reaction for first hand feedback, but it isn’t what we naturally and instinctively want.

Why does knowing you are real matter? Why do we judge ourselves by other’s reactions to us? Knowing you are real matters on a very primal level. Species other than man even seek this affirmation. Our first real moment of consciousness involves the awareness that someone is in contact with us. Mother or father is holding us. We will try to manufacture this sense if it doesn’t occur naturally. But instinctively, just as we naturally acquire a language as we mature, we also have a deep seated sense to feel present among other human beings. Even on a very simple rudimentary level, single cell organisms have a sense of where and who they are based on what they “feel” in their environment. So we have this urge in every fiber of our being. Is there anything we need more than this?

I’m reminded of studies showing animals die when all needs are met except this one, and babies as well, and humans. “Failure to thrive” I think is the official term.

We feel real when our bodies and minds are getting the unspoken signals that tell them life is as it should be. This feeling has nothing to do with feeling comfortable. In fact, feeling too comfortable can be bad for us, but one body speaks to another. We speak to each other on a subconscious level.

Everyone familiar with the mirror neuron system? We have a whole subsection of our nervous system that exists just to reflect for us what another person is doing, the state of being they are expressing. When they frown our mirroring neurons reproduce both the sense of frowning, and the sense of the emotion behind it.

When we behave naturally, how do we act? Who are we in private when nobody is watching? Do you feel serious, professional, responsible? Do you go to sleep with your responsibility to get a good night’s rest foremost in your mind?

When I behave naturally, I act like a leaf. Does anyone else act like that?

Act in the moment.

I tend to sing when no one is around or throw punches in the air.

When I wake in the early morning and it’s just me and the cat, I blather to myself, sometimes in a sing song fashion, and just putter around doing whatever occurs to me, but I won’t act that way in public. Why not?

You have to be the one to answer that. Why don’t you? Actually, I don’t have to be the one to answer that. Everyone answers for me. Every time I talk to someone, they answer for me. Every time I engage someone with a purpose in mind, that question is answered for me, and no one consciously chooses to do this. So what is it that answers this behavioral question for me?

Be yourself and not worry what others think? That could get me into serious trouble. If I refuse to acknowledge this system we all live in, would there be no negative consequences?

Unless you find a community that accepts your true behaviour instead of you conforming to others’ expectations of you. So I have to seek something that may not exist?

Or be comfortable enough with yourself to accept yourself as you are regardless of your acceptance by others. Is confidence enough to function in society? To thrive?

We need to learn to play the roles we’re given and still know ourselves? It seems we are always in a role play. Games. Anyone here like games?

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~