Cruelty, unabashed and relentless, is part of our inescapable reality these days. We exist in a media-dominated environment and many of us have become addicted to witnessing the horror and chaos of humans bludgeoning each other with either weapons of war or words.

To turn away or to look — both options feel terrible and trouble us. Either choice can, perhaps, be explained as a sanity survival technique but the choice usually swings back and forth leaving us in a quandary.

One wonders over and over, especially during sleepless nights, is there any way to come to terms with the way things are. I fear not. Certainly we should never excuse savagery and suffering on any terms. But I can, at least, try to accept that the natural universe itself is neither good nor bad … that old dualistic concept instilled in most of us as children still influences us. We exclaim, “Why are innocent children being starved and mutilated?” or “I thought people were basically good at heart.”

 As members of the species Homo sapiens, we too are part of the natural universe, and inevitably bear both good and bad attributes. We are all wildly variable, infinitely complex and forever mysterious. Some speak of God as being no less mysterious. Indeed, Elie Wiesel wrote eloquently of that dilemma after being a prisoner in Auschwitz.

The function of a relationship, whether between the swirling atoms that create matter, a herd of elephants, a family of otters, or a stand of fir trees, is to sustain a temporary cohesion.

Our own empathetic social milieus keep us relatively sane and safe despite life’s constant unpredictable disruptions.

I had a close friend, a dedicated artist and poet, who recently died of Parkinson’s and heart disease. I had chanced upon Arthur years before on the internet and we started corresponding about art. He lived in Italy and although we never met, somehow a relationship developed. In our often daily exchanges via transatlantic emails we shared our fears, doubts and anger about being painfully vulnerable in what we perceived as a cruel crazy world. Dashes of irreverent humor sustained us as well.

One day Arthur wrote; “Throughout the natural universe lies a fine web of pain, much finer than the spider lair invisibly connecting all, plant, sea, river, rock, insect, animal & especially man, who is, through the mind, solely aware of the connection, when one thing suffers, the pain vibrates through the many.”

The eloquence of his statement lifted my spirits on a sad grey day. I am sure this invisible web exists and believe it is why these painful leaden stones lie so heavily on folk’s hearts today. Given that oneness exists we can not separate our minds from suffering whether we choose to turn away from it or observe it obsessively. Awareness of others’ pain as well as their joy is an inevitable part of consciousness. This web connecting “plant, sea, river, rock, insect, animal & especially man,” strangely, also sometimes eases the rage and grief that we will never entirely escape. One learns that through relationships one is never alone, be it with friends, a beloved animal, a meaningful place on earth or a sheltering tree.

Some studies in neurobiology have revealed that there is an innate religious instinct in our brains binding us to a relationship to this oneness of the natural world or to what many call God. Could evolution have provided us with a way to sense Arthur’s invisible connection? And by extending this awareness into a faith through ritual, may we not lessen the weight of those leaden stones we were constructed to carry in our hearts?

Margot Fleck is an artist living in Northfield.