I am sure you have all heard this classic phrase “It Takes A Village” that ended up becoming political about 15 years ago. It’s the messenger stupid! All kidding aside, I think it is important to recognize that there are so many people involved in the smallest of things that we are trying to achieve on a daily basis. In other words, without the kindness of others, a lot of what we are used to will vanish in a heartbeat.
In a sense, post covid we are already seeing the effect of that. Let me explain. Before COVID, we were all used to a certain level of price stability. We expected things to cost a certain amount and if it went up it went up reasonably enough that it did not break people’s budgets. It did not make life difficult for them in general. What happened during COVID-19 is really an eye-opener. People in certain industries started to retire. Let me give you a couple of examples. People in the railroad industry, the hard-working people who held blue-collar jobs made sure that the turn tables were manually turned when necessary for trains to run smoothly. Now, it is a hard-working job that requires one to travel hundreds of miles every day up and down the railroad track. It is not a fancy job and there were no newcomers for these jobs. No one in the management thought about recruiting future generations of these blue-collar workers—they probably figured how hard can it be to find someone to turn these things. Well, during COVID, a lot of these workers retired. As a result, the railroads could not find enough people at any price it seemed. They offered whatever it took to keep the trains running. The oil and gas industry is having a similar crisis. Because of the stigma attached to the industry not enough people were joining the petroleum industry. All of a sudden all these retiring engineers created a real shortage. Now, they are offering upwards of $200K to a recent graduate to make sure there are enough engineers in the field.
Why does that matter to you? Well, it matters because it resulted in the runaway inflation that we are experiencing. The plumbing job that used to cost $85 now costs $300. That changes people’s lifestyle. So I come back to the kindness of others. Without the kindness of others, we would not be able to live a comfortable life that we are used to.
Let’s look at an example. When you woke up this morning, you went to brush your teeth. You opened the faucet and water came out. You did not put any thought into it at all. That’s what is supposed to happen. But think about how many people are involved in getting that water to you. It starts with raw water. Depending upon your water source, it is either coming from a reservoir or a water well. Someone had to design that reservoir or a well and build one. Then someone put together a pipeline to bring that water to a water treatment plant. Someone designed that plant and built one. People operate the treatment plant 24 hours a day to make sure that all the particles that are not supposed to be in your water are taken out and water is safe to drink directly out of the tap. By the way, that itself is a luxury as the majority of the world’s population does not have clean drinking water right out of the tap. So you see, quite possibly thousands of people were involved just to make sure that you get your water first thing in the morning when you turn your faucet on.
And this is just one example. This is true for everything that goes on in our lives on a daily basis. In short, we need others for our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. And without others, we are nothing. And this is not just a figure of speech. It’s the literal truth. Now you can think about well, I am paying for all these things and people who are involved are all getting paid. And you are right. But here is the thing, as we saw in the example of railroad workers and petroleum engineers, what if they start working? They have a choice. What effect that would have on our daily lives? As we speak, there is a strike by auto workers. If the strike lasts long enough, there may not be enough cars for people to buy resulting in price increases. So you see, it’s true you are paying for these products and services but we must remember the kindness of others in bringing these goods and services to us.
So this is telling us something so interesting about who we actually are. Because self-grasping and self-cherishing think that I’m independent of everything. I’m there, I’m findable, I’m solid, I’m real. And I move around in a ocean of other real things and real people, with no connection at all. Occasionally, we notice the connection. But generally, we don’t notice that we only exist in relationship to others. In fact, we’re totally dependently related. That’s how we exist and dependently related is the opposite of being inherently existent or independent. It’s the literal opposite.