Still, the world begins here—Seeing the world just as it is
- Keiko Ozeki
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
News reports that the United States has carried out a military intervention in Venezuela.
When I was a child, I believed—somewhat optimistically—that “by the 21st century, war would no longer exist.”I carried a vague sense that if human consciousness evolved, war would eventually come to an end.
But it seems the world did not move in that direction.
—Even that expectation was corrected long ago. To the premise that war will not disappear.
In such a world, what is it that I can do now?
And yet, there is one hope.
What happens in the world is a mirror of what is happening within. So rather than being overwhelmed, stunned, or tossed around by events as they unfold, I want to keep turning my attention to what is happening inside me.
What I want to keep asking is this: Through what kind of lens am I seeing the world? And what am I projecting onto it?
—To reclaim projection. That is, to notice the lens through which I am seeing.
The world appears as I see it. That is why I do not want to forget how something within me is projected, interpreted, and how this very world comes into being.
Let things be as they are. What exists is simply how things are right now—the facts before interpretation arises.
There is only the fact of this very moment. So I am simply, fully—100 percent—here.
Even with war, there remains this hope: that the world I experience is shaped by how I see.
This is not a hope that denies reality. Nor a hope that tries to fix the world.
It is a hope that takes responsibility for where I stand.
I may not be able to stop world events with my own power, but how I see the world—and from where I stand—cannot be taken away from me.
Even in a world where war continues,will I keep creating the world through a lens of fear? Or will I have the courage to see the world as it is, and let it arise anew from that lens?
At that point of choice, I am always standing.
That fact itself
is my hope.
Words and Photo by K E I K O