Thank You, Ray Bradbury
Thank you for reminding me that each one of us is insignificant.
I finished reading Fahrenheit 451 as the train pulled into the station in downtown Chicago, and I filed off with the rest of the passengers, as I have done countless times. This time, however, I was filled with a new sense of deep interconnectedness with my fellow train riders, and human beings in general, and a much more genuine connection with my emotions and unconditional self-acceptance. As I walked through the station, I read two advertisements. The first one was a Pepsi ad that simply said, “JOY” with the Pepsi logo replacing the “o”, and the second advertisement was an advertisement for traveling to a different state and finding true “happiness”. Why do we need advertisements to tell us to be happy? Are we that dependent on inanimate stimuli to tell us how to feel? I left the train station.
People must’ve noticed me walking around the dreary rain-covered streets and sidewalks of Chicago in a short-sleeved shirt without a coat and thought, “Aren’t you chilled by the rain and wind?”, and, to them I respond with, “I’m warmed by the vibrations of the hundreds of people in this building next to me, warmed by the vibrations of the thousands of people on this block, warmed by the vibrations of the millions of people in this city, and warmed by the vibrations of the billions of people on this planet. Aren’t you chilled by the fact that you don’t even know a hundredth of the people living in this city?”
We, as the human race, have fallen into this trap where we believe that the individual needs to rise up beyond the chaos, believe we need to be separate from those that are lesser, and believe we need to distinguish ourselves enough so that those who are lesser can marvel at us. I will be the first person to admit that I am 110% guilty of having this belief. Luckily, as individuals, we do not mean anything. Any one person cannot accomplish anything. One person MAY influence other people, but, there you go, you need other people involved for it to mean anything.
We are all the same energy vibrating at different frequencies. Hug another person. Do it right now. Feel the other person’s frequency. Don’t notice how different theirs is from yours and vice versa: notice how, when your frequency meets theirs, they vibrate together and create a harmony. Feel how they fight in certain parts and agree in others. A frequency by itself is just a number, just a physical property, just a fact; however, a harmony creates a feeling, an emotion, a communicative link between two frequencies and two people, a communicative link where information can be passed.
As far as I can tell, all that we’re here for is to continue to pass on information from one generation to the next: we learn that we’re here to make things easier on those that will come after us. We’re told, “Nothing is original anymore”, and there’s only one more way that could be more true. “No thing was ever original.” The “things” that we’re referring to when we say that “Nothing is original anymore” are just the things that occur when the human race advances to the point of civilization. We’re stuck at this point of civilization, and the only hope that we have of moving from this point forward is realizing that we’re all the same thing, embracing this, and moving on.
Or so I think. I haven’t really accurately portrayed all of my thoughts here, but that is what your job as the reader is. Beat up what I’ve said, find what’s wrong with it, find gaps in my logic and let me know. It doesn’t really matter if what I think is true or only partially true or not true at all, for, now it’s out there in the human conscience for all to absorb, add to, take away from, or reject. Again, thank you, Ray Bradbury, for reminding me that each one of us, individually, is insignificant.
