When I recently listened to a classic orchestral piece on my car radio it struck me how the sound of so many different instruments melds into one, and how that one complex sound can only be achieved if all hundred or so musicians play together in total harmony, unison and synchronicity. Take away the brass instruments, or ten violins, or a particular instrument that is crucial to one particular segment, and the whole is diminished. One instrument on its own can never do what an orchestra does. The whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts, and individual parts shine more brightly in the context of the composite whole.
Through Suzanne Simard’s work with forest ecosystems for example we are beginning to realize that trees are less competitively Darwinian and individualistic, and exist within a mutually beneficial and cooperative mycorrhizal network of nutrient distribution from mother trees to seedlings rather than existing in isolation. Take the big mother trees away and new seedlings suffer.
How is it that we humans have come to think of ourselves as distinct and separate, from one another and from nature? Maybe the pandemic has brought to the forefront that we exist within a network of interdependence. How dependent we are of postal workers, healthcare professionals, supermarket staff, bus and subway drivers, warehouse workers and delivery drivers to keep the whole running. How dependent we are of our network of friends and family to keep us mentally sane, and how difficult isolation is. We can accomplish so much more when we get together around common goals than if we go it alone. We feel so much more grounded and settled, emotionally nurtured and embraced, in company.
Interdependence is not a sign of weakness but strengthens the whole and furthers a common cause exponentially. Regardless, for example, of what your stance is on vaccines, the huge effort to bring a Corona vaccine to market within a year could only be accomplished through the work of a huge interdependent network of scientists and government efforts all working in unison towards a common goal. Alone we are powerless at the enormity of the challenges of climate change. But in the spring, when the earth stood still during the worldwide lockdown, we saw how fast pollution can be reversed.
A whole orchestra can produce a gloriously complex, powerful, and magical listening experience in a way an individual violin simply cannot.