At the heart of the human experience lies a profound mystery, the ‘I’. The self. The consciousness that says “I am”, echoing the most ancient declarations of being. This ‘I’ is the seat of all awareness, the node through which we interpret the world. It is the most intimate reality we know, yet, paradoxically, it is also the root of all that goes wrong in our shared human endeavour.
Human life is, on its
surface, a celebration of being. The richness of existence flows from the full
embrace of experiences, joy
and sorrow, gain and loss, love and grief. There is a strange wisdom to pain;
it sharpens pleasure. There is beauty in contrast; the light means more when
we’ve known the dark. But beneath this dance of being, there lies a deeper
struggle: the battle between the self and the other, between I
and you.
The I naturally
seeks fullness, expansion,
expression, and elevation. It desires to be good, even great. But
greatness is rarely pursued in isolation; rather, it is sought in comparison.
Thus, the most fundamental desire of the I, to be, subtly, becomes the desire to be better
than. And here begins the slippery descent: the pursuit of identity becomes
the pursuit of superiority.
Families, tribes,
corporations, nations, even
entire civilisations, are
often nothing more than scaled-up expressions of the individual ego. The
microcosm of personal ambition is mirrored in the macrocosm of geopolitical
conflict. Where I wants to win, we want to dominate. Where I
wants to be seen, we want to be worshipped. And where I wants to
be protected, we begin to fear and attack anything that is not us.
This is the paradox of
the human condition: the drive that leads us to build also leads us to destroy.
The desire to shine, to leave a mark, to be more—drives innovation, art,
culture, science. But the same desire, unchecked, becomes imperialism, conquest,
oppression, genocide.
Today’s world is a
theatre of this tension. From the trenches of Ukraine to the ruins of Gaza,
from the trade wars between superpowers to the ideological battles waged
online, one sees the I scaled into nations and identities, all clamouring
for validation, power, and security. Each party believes in the righteousness
of their cause; each is sure they are defending their survival or honour. But
step back, and the pattern is the same: the I protecting itself by
undermining the other.
Even humanitarianism is
not spared. The I cloaks itself in the robes of virtue, but often helps
not to heal the other, but to feel superior to them. Charity becomes
condescension. Diplomacy becomes manipulation. Peacekeeping becomes another
form of control.
Yet all is not bleak.
Within this paradox lies also the key to our redemption. For if the I is
the source of our fragmentation, it is also the seat of our deepest empathy. To
be truly I,consciously,
reflectively, is to recognize the same being in the other. When the I
is secure enough in its own being, it no longer needs to dominate. It can
finally afford to connect.
The path forward, then,
is not the erasure of self, but the transcendence of ego. It is the
cultivation of an I that is whole, not because it is greater than
the other, but because it is grounded in its own being. A mature I can
engage with the world not through fear and competition, but through
vulnerability, curiosity, and love.
In this way, peace is not
just a geopolitical arrangement. It is a psychological revolution. A spiritual
awakening. A reordering of values—from competition to compassion, from domination
to dialogue, from aggrandisement to awareness.
The future of our planet
hinges not on who wins the next war or gains the next resource, but on whether
we can collectively outgrow the tyranny of the I that must always be
more than others. For when the I no longer fears being equal, only then
can we hope for a world in which difference is not a threat, but a mirror,
showing us another angle of our shared humanity.
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