Unseen, unheard, unloved…unthinkable

The body of Yvette Vickers lay unnoticed and unmissed in her California home for what some have speculated to be several months beyond the moment of her passing.  The B-movie actress and former Playboy Playmate, perhaps best known for her role in the cult classic film “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman,” not only died alone, but her physical presence was not missed by even one of the over 7 billion people that currently occupy our planet for an unimaginable amount of time.  In spite of the fact that people at one point actually paid money to view her naked body in Playboy magazine and people paid money to be entertained by her roles in a few low-budget films, not one single person checked on her, asked about her, looked for her; and most disappointing of all, not one person expressed love to her.

How can something like this happen?  How is it even possible for someone’s life to end virtually unseen, unheard, and unloved?   And perhaps the bigger question is:  What can we do to change that?

As disturbing as this particular story may be, the fact that millions of human beings on our planet today live in isolation and loneliness is perhaps even more disturbing.  The statistics surrounding an ever-increasing population contrasted against the staggering numbers of people moving through their days alone seems absurd and completely implausible.  A logical mind would struggle to understand such a contradiction in facts, let alone understand how an entire population of people could continue to do very little, if anything, about it.

What piece of the puzzle are we missing?

At what turn did  Humanity get so horribly off course?

While a percentage of our population is benefiting from living in a world pulsing with the frenetic energy of fast-paced technology and more advanced ways of communication, we may want to pause and take notice of the large percentage of our population that is being, quite frankly, forgotten and left behind.  And even among those who have immersed themselves in the fast lane of the “information super highway,” it is becoming more and more evident that we, as a society, seem to be aloofly drifting away from the true intention of our relationships: to touch, to gaze, to smell, to hear, and to BE with each other in such a way that we may know experientially Who We Really Are.

But the fact that so many people live day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year clouded in loneliness and feelings of insignificance cannot be entirely and solely attributed to modern-day advances in communication.  Somewhere along the line, we have simply forgotten what matters.  We have forgotten that our neighbors matter.  We have forgotten that the elderly lady pushing her shopping cart in the grocery store matters.  We have forgotten that the children who are ignored on the playground matter.  We have forgotten that the man sleeping on the park bench, without a home to go to, matters.  We have forgotten that every single solitary expression of life which lives and breathes on this planet matters.

Of course, on a spiritual metaphysical level, no one is ever truly alone.  But there is certainly a huge disconnect somewhere between the knowing of that and the experiencing of that as millions of people are struggling right now, in this very moment, to feel some semblance of meaning and purpose in their lives.

But how does somebody make a difference in the life of another if they don’t feel their own worthiness or experience their own significance?  How can anyone possibly give something they simply don’t have in the first place?

Conversations with God offered to us the powerful message of:  “Whatever it is that you wish to experience more of in your life, be the source of it in a life of another. There is a universal law that plays its effect here. When you give what you want to another, you cause yourself to notice that you have it.  And since reality is a matter of perception, it is your perception that has caused you to imagine that you do not have it. When you give it to another and cause them to have it, you suddenly come to the realization that I could not give it to them if I did not have it to give. Suddenly you become aware that you had it all along.”

And when we live our lives within this framework of understanding, what then have we allowed ourselves to discover about ourselves?  About life?  About God?  About Who We Are and Why We Are Here?

Could we all commit to stepping outside of our comfort zone to present someone who feels unseen the opportunity to be seen?  Or to hear someone who feels unheard?  Or to love someone who feels unloved?  Even if the person who feels unseen, unheard, or unloved happens to be you?