Disharmony stems from our striving to control and impose certainty on a world too complex to fully grasp. Dissonance emerges from the juxtaposition of our desire for certainty and our deep, unshakable awareness that we can never be sure of what we are or what to do with our existence. At the core of the human experience is a profound disconnection, a tension born from being finite, self-conscious creatures navigating a planet both abundant and dangerous. We walk a tightrope, (sub)consciously aware that death can arrive at any moment, entirely beyond our control. Deeper than this anxiety about death’s arrival, is the unsettling knowledge that inherent in our being is the ability to not be at all. This knowledge permeates our existence (often without our conscious awareness), shaping how we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the world in which we are embedded.

Yet, this fragile condition, paradoxically, has fueled our success as a species. Knowing that life is uncertain, that death is inevitable, has driven us to create, to build, to communicate, and to cooperate. The social structures, cultures, and the complex web of relationships that bind us are tools for survival, but, more meaningfully, they are also expressions of our desire to make life more than a series of disconnected moments between birth and death. In these systems, we find joy, laughter, and produce a sense of meaning in our shared experience of survival. Through cooperation, we craft meaning together, pulling something from the uncertainty that looms over us.

Nevertheless, underneath the surface of our creative efforts and cooperative structures lies a deep-seated fracture. Our fear of death, unresolved desires, and unspoken anxieties flow through our actions. We’re constantly haunted by the suppressed knowledge of our own mortality and the fleeting nature of existence. There’s a visceral tension between the drive to build something meaningful and the gnawing awareness that it could all unravel. The dissonance is felt in every creative act, where the urge to create, to forge connections, is tainted by the repressed recognition that nothing we build can truly last.

Joyful expressions of creativity are often undergirded by a desperate struggle to overcome the inevitable. Meaning-making itself is fleeting. Everything we suppress one day rises to the surface.

The more we sense our uncertainty, the more we push for control. Uncertainty becomes insecurity. It’s more comfortable to ignore the full implications of our finitude than to live with it fully in view. It’s not the uncertainty itself that’s problematic; it’s the way we turn away from it, trying to impose artificial certainties onto the world. In doing so we sever the natural connection we have to the cycles of life in birth, growth, decay, death, and rebirth. The more we avoid unmediated reality, the more our “doing” produces disharmony in ourselves, our relationships, and the systems we create.

Systems of control, safety nets, and routines we create to shield ourselves from uncertainty only reinforce the illusion of separation from the cycles that define existence. Instead of seeing birth and death as part of the same process, we treat them as separate, distinct, even oppositional forces. There’s a harmony in these processes, a deep interconnection that we are a part of, but our fear of uncertainty drives us to create barriers to experiencing that. Birth and death, rather than separate, linear events, are waves in the same ocean. Being and non-being go together. This is the truth of Yin-Yang. To live in harmony with life’s cycles is to accept that we are both finite and, in some sense, eternal, as our existence is part of a never broken continuum stretching back to the big bang, the creation of stars, including our sun, and the first single-celled organisms on our planet.

Our bodies, ecosystems, and galaxies all operate through cycles of emergence and dissolution. Cells in our body die constantly. Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is essential for development and the maintenance of healthy tissues. Without it, we would not survive. Stars end their life cycles in supernova explosions, releasing carbon, oxygen, and iron into space. These elements form new planets and eventually new forms of life. Forests age and collapse, and their decay enriches the soil, making way for new growth. The death of one form makes space, in physical and material terms, for another. When we see death as a necessary part of this ongoing process rather than as a final stop, we begin to fear it less. We see it is the condition that makes life possible at every scale.

When we avoid encountering ourselves as vulnerable, finite creatures who cannot predict the future with certainty, our being becomes misaligned with the natural rhythms of life. This avoidance leads to actions that reflect this disconnection. The systems we create mirror this inner conflict. Our urges for control and certainty dominate because they operate without detection. The consequence is deep disharmony in how we relate to ourselves, to each other, and to the world we are embedded in and interdependently shaping.

Survival has always depended on more than just the individual’s will. We have a deep drive to cooperate. Think back to our ancestors huddled around fires in the wild. They were sharing survival itself. Picture them, swapping stories under the night sky, communicating strategies to track prey or protect each other from predators. Their survival was contingent on coming together, finding strength in numbers, and trust in shared effort.

Cooperation is a basic feature of life. Our bodies work because every part depends on the others. Cells send signals, organs respond to each other, and systems like digestion, circulation, and immunity stay in balance through constant interaction. Even speaking to one another is an act of cooperation. We use shared words, familiar body language, and tones of voice that follow patterns we have learned together. These small acts of alignment make understanding possible.

This grand cooperation is not something outside of us. We are part of it. We help create and maintain the systems of meaning that guide our lives. Language, symbols, gestures, and social expectations are shaped by people. By us. They change when we change how we act and what we agree to. When we see this clearly, we begin to understand that meaning is always dependent on participation. It lasts only as long as we act in ways that sustain it.

This means that meaning has no fixed foundation. It depends entirely on the identities we take on and the ways those identities shape how the world appears to us. Even so, the fact that meaning is contingent does not free us from the need for it. For life to make sense and for us to act within it, things must appear as meaningful. Without meaning, life would feel scattered and aimless.

Since meaning depends on cooperation, it can never be fully private. It always comes from shared life. To live well, we must accept that meaning is something we help shape, with others, in each moment. This means we can also ask what should matter to us. We can examine what we currently find meaningful and ask how much of it comes from fear. Many systems of meaning are built to hide the fact that we are finite. They try to make life feel certain and permanent.

We do not need to do that. We are strong enough to stare into the abyss and smile. Isn’t this the lesson of the happy Buddha? We can begin to create new ways of making meaning that accept change and loss as part of life. We can draw from the idea that being and non-being shape each other. A thing is defined not only by what it is but also by what it is not. We are shaped by things outside of us, including the meanings we learn, the people we interact with, and the things we choose not to be.

When individuals and collectives avoid rather than embrace life’s inherent uncertainties, our creative and cooperative potentials become strained. Relationships become transactional, interactions shallow, and the natural flow of interdependence is obscured.

I’ve been learning that the path towards improving our social order and producing more harmonious communities lies in understanding the roots of our existential disconnection. You can’t force what’s natural. You have to let go and let it flow naturally. You have to trust that it will flow. To resolve the disconnection means addressing the fear that underlies it, the avoidance of existential uncertainty, and the denial of life’s cycles. Only by confronting and taking on these uncomfortable truths can harmonious connection—authentic cooperation—emerge individually and collectively.

There is continuous interplay between being and doing, between surviving as individuals and flourishing as part of a collective. The more aligned one is with their own being, the more naturally they can contribute to and benefit from the collective whole. The more the collective is aligned with its own being, the more naturally it can contribute to and benefit from the individual. In this sense, flourishing involves flowing harmoniously within the interdependent ever-expansive collectives that produce each other. The stronger the connections between individuals, the more vibrant the collective, and vice versa. The disconnection that begins in fear can be transformed through the conscious pursuit of understanding of interconnection found in embracing the cycles of life, shedding the delusion of certainty and control, and rediscovering the joy of letting go to flow.

Experience is a balancing act between these forces. Consciousness and cooperation flow, shift, and evolve as individuals and communities confront the realities of life. In accepting our vulnerability and interconnectedness, we tap into the power of our being. What emerges is a space where individuals can express their being freely, and in doing so, contribute to a collective that is not just surviving, but thriving.