Ubuntu – nobody is ever outside

My wife, an interculturalist, introduced me to the Ubuntu concept after she got home, entirely inspired and enthusiastic, from an international training that was led by two African interculturalists. I remember that immediately when hearing about the Ubuntu, I sensed an utter greatness in it and felt an immense respect and admiration for it.

But, on the other hand, I also felt rather distanced from it, almost completely unable to connect to it or to relate to it in any other way but rational, intellectual. I did not know why I felt this remoteness, but did not think about the matter all that much until I, a couple of days back, was awarded with the Ubuntu badge.

On the one hand I felt really honoured and happy about this award, but my confusion in regards to my perception of the Ubuntu concept came out again and got me thinking and observing. What is it that distances me, in my body and in my feelings, from this concept despite I admire it so much. Why am I having difficulties to connect with it, what is this gap made of?

I noticed that my respect for the Ubuntu spirit was mixed with feelings about my westernised mind being just too dirty and spoiled with the intoxicating ideas of the omnipotence of the individual identity, the importance of personal growth and development, all this individualistic discourses, that the abyss between me and the otherness was just too wide for me to feel the fundamental connectedness of us all. I felt I was so far away from even understanding the Ubuntu, let alone living it.

But I was still exploring this area within me and while watching Mandela’s short explanation of what the Ubuntu in life is (or used to be in the old times, at least), it finally dawned on me.

It was the deserve oriented language that made the gap, the canyon between the spirit of Ubuntu and my little self. This discourse of always operating with the idea that I have to deserve to be accepted, appreciated, loved, respected…, this cultural context of there being some universal rules I need to (and will always fail to) follow in order to deserve my needs to be met within a group of people, this paradigm was dominating the society and all my socializations throughout all my life. And I internalized it into the very fundaments of my own being and my beingness. Do I deserve to be accepted? Do I deserve to be a part of this beauty? Have I complied with all the requirement to be let in? Am I good enough? Will they find out that I am in fact not?

I see this deserve oriented language of conditioning as one of the most fundamental failures of the humanity. Resulting in being conditioned and conditioning others. If you do this and that then you may qualify to deserve my love. If you comply with this and that, then you may deserve to be let in. Distinctions. Hierarchy. Levels of importance. Inner and outer circles. Social climbing. Competing. Building up as much power over others as possible…

What I am trying to say here is that I feel, somewhere very deep and barely tangible within me, that the Ubuntu starts within us, with our perception of ourselves, our own worth and our own needs. And with the realization that it is not at all about deserving or not deserving. This language and these notions are completely irrelevant and meaningless.

Ubuntu, as I see it, is a complete absence of evaluation and deserve oriented perception of self and others. We do not have to deserve to be accepted, to be part of it all, to be taken care of. And the same is true for everybody else. Because we can not actually be separated, be not-connected. We are connected, ultimately and universally. We can not be if others are not. We are because others are. We are because we all are.

The only choice we have is to choose to continue denying it all or to choose to cease denying the obvious and fundamental. And to step in, fully.