Feb 2nd, 2022, originally published on X

Unity

From Nations to Nodes by Jack Butcher

One concept that took me years to understand is that unity is more important than anything else.

It is the foundation of everything we cherish.

Unity, beauty, cohesion, life, and love are all one and the same thing. Both in our human relationships as well as in physical reality.

I don't mean this in an esoteric way at all...

Unity is strange and defies common logic.

Take these examples from our physical world:

Copper and tin are two different metals. Both are quite weak. Until someone had the absurd idea to melt and join them together.

The result is bronze.

A multitude stronger than both copper and tin.

This makes no sense on first sight: Take something weak and join it with something weak to create something strong.

This simple discovery changed all of human civilisation, in fact we call over 2k years of history by it: The Bronze Age.

Tin and copper are still within bronze and separate again when melting the alloy.

So unity does not equal "sameness". Unity means unity in diversity. Strong bonds of different things.

Take water...

Hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) are distinct atoms.

Both highly inflammable substances.

But when they join together, they can form a strong bond and become the opposite of fire. The life-giving substance we call water.

Similarly, when we (as people) unite, we create life.

From the family, to the tribe, to villages, to cities, city states, nations and empires.

When there is unity, there is life.

Human life has lived through so many stages of complexity...

We're on the verge of the most simple, complex and beautiful form of life we've ever seen.

For the first time in human history, global unity is feasible.

"So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth." – Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings

We humans are capable of that. We've come so far already. Global peace and understanding is inevitable. How is unity possible?

When we learn to forgive. When we overcome the desire of revenge and vengeance. When we ignore our individual shortcomings.

This is true for for all levels of human interaction. It's true for a marriage just as much as it is for nation states.

We must learn to value unity over being right.

This goes deeply against our understanding of the world, but i believe it is essential to growth.

Imagine, from the previous example, copper would argue with tin over the fact that it is the stronger metal.

They would never come together to form bronze, the much stronger alloy.

Similarly, when we humans unite, we grow and will find truth.

Unity does not mean holding hands and singing kumbaya.

Unity means coming together with a common goal: Building an ever advancing civilisation. Securing the wellbeing of all the worlds people.

When two parties fight, both lose. When they unite, both win.

Now, in this information age, when we keep them to ourselves we don't gain anything. When we share our ideas, all become wealthy.

The light of consciousness shines brighter.

"Being right" is for the simplistic mind. No one can claim they are right.

We can only find truth through unity.

The only thing that is right is unity.

Truth, Perception by Jack Butcher

Unity is more important than anything else in the world.

When we're at war, we create the most terrible atrocities and suffering no mind can fathom.

But when united, we are an antifragile system. We solve the most difficult problems and overcome incredible hardship.

When united, we can, quite literally, build paradise on earth.

And if we can, it is our obligation to. Is this not the purpose of life? To fulfil our highest potential? To go through the stages of civilisation and come together in ever greater forms of unity?

Unity is the most important power.

Cohesion and attraction is life; Decomposition is death.

Unity is life. Disunity is death.