We all live in a world which is in so many ways defined by boundaries, borders, measurements, limitations and attributed (arbitrary) values. That these various metrics are themselves only really tools with which to understand the world was long ago obscured by a culture and society that has become enamoured of it’s own image, projected upon the world, and mistaken for the essential reality underlying that world. That the boundaries, borders and many measurements we make of the world, that we impose upon the world, are not themselves the actual world they refer to appears to be illustrative a of deep error in our existential calculus. The old Zen proverb about the finger that points to the moon not itself being the moon is a salient reminder of the limitations of language, of number and of measurement or differentiation.

Many of us are familiar with the astronaut’s revelation that from space there are no visible political borders. There is no map of the current collective human political identities and insecurities superimposed upon the physical planet - all such boundaries and borders are either physical and ideological artefacts of a particular culture at a particular time in history or they are simply purely mental constructs. If we are to attempt to traverse, invalidate and ultimately dissolve the borders which keep us apart and keep so many in bondage, poverty and illiteracy - it is certain that we need new ways of seeing and doing things; that we need creative and open minds with which to successfully face the challenges our world presents us.

Boundaries and borders do not exist in nature in the same ways they exist in language or in any of the other symbolic systems (i.e. art, mathematics, music) we may use to communicate. We would perhaps do well to consider incorporating nature’s symmetries and organisational dynamics into our own all-too-human systems and frameworks. A just, equitable and sustainable social and cultural world has a lot to learn from the symmetries and self-organising complexity of nature. To understand and creatively explore the countless new possibilities of organisational structure and analysis open to us only requires a small sideways shift in consciousness. As the poet E.E. Cummings so cryptically put it: “listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go”

This post was originally made by this author here at the Issues Beyond Borders group blog.