This is an excerpt from the first course in The WellBeing Project, The 7 Concepts.

A central theme of project’s message is that we are immaterial beings animating physical bodies. Although different belief systems describe this immaterial essence in different ways (from purely the activity of neural circuitry to an everlasting drop of divinity), the fact remains that if part of my body is amputated, I remain a whole person. Therefore, who I am is not my body, but what remains whole when my body is altered.

Understanding ourselves as a being inhabiting a body is absolutely necessary if we ever going to understand our needs and how to meet them. That is the basis of human well-being; having one’s needs met consistently well. It is only then, when our immaterial and physical needs are met, that we flourish.

In the world we presently live in, we relate to one another as bodies. We categorize one another by the shape of our genitals, the shade of our skin, the size of our bling. Recognizing that some current human groups have been oppressed while others have been privileged is important, but ultimately it falls short of the real solution. If we fail to understand ourselves as beings, we can never create true equity and human flourishing.

We are trapped, individually and collectively, in the neglect that leads to crisis, until we embrace the reality of who we truly are.

The excerpt below is a very personal story of witnessing the neglect of another being’s needs, to tragic ends.

On Christmas Day, my children were always at their dad’s. I usually took the day to do laundry and chill out, quite content on my own. That year, knowing he would be alone, I invited him to my apartment. We ordered Chinese food and hung out, no big deal. In the weeks that followed, different people commented to me about how much he had loved being at my place on Christmas. He told everyone about our holiday together.

When I moved away, we kept in touch. He would send me newspaper clippings he thought were interesting. We spoke on the phone periodically. I worried about him. I knew how unhealthy it was to be as lonely as he was. Worse, I worried that the friendly banter he exchanged in the tavern, and his welcome face in the neighborhood, distracted from the reality of his isolation.

But I also told myself that he wasn’t my responsibility. Worse, I told myself that he was a person of privilege; a wealthy, white man in a wealthy white town, with endless options if he wanted them.

I on the other hand was a struggling single mother, then a freshly partnered co-parent in a blended family. My hands were full. He wasn't my responsibility.

And then one day the police called. He'd been missing for a few days when his car was found in the woods. And then his body. In his wallet the police found my contact details. They wanted to know my relationship to him and any insight I could offer. 

I was crushed with my own choices; the way I had dismissed my own concern. I’d given myself the excuse not to answer the nudge I repeatedly felt to reach out to him. I’d been watching him starve to death for a long time while I lived in New York. Then when I moved away, I chose to ignore what I knew deep down was happening to him. I justified my choices with the reasoning of the ordinary world*. I convinced myself that his “privilege” (skin tone, gender, and economic status) meant he really didn’t need (deserve?) my attention or concern. 

It’s easy to wave off the invisible. It’s disastrous to wave off the invisible.

If we accepted the reality that the invisible part of our existence, the being and its needs, are the center and priority of our life, everything would change. All that seems difficult, scary, overwhelming, even tortuous about life would cease to be so.

*The Ordinary World is a term from The Hero's Journey, a universal story narrative from the work of Joseph Campbell. In the project, we use the Hero's Journey as a template for human development.