Coming Out

Have you ever felt yourself coming out of the world instead of coming into it?

Western languages are structured in a way that seems to imply you enter into the world when born. It's easy to imagine being placed into this world. The language, phrasing and imagery we use in everyday conversation tends to support this notion. For example, the imagery and language used to describe a baby’s birth often frames the event as a baby emerging from the mother's womb and into the maternity ward.

However, that describes only one perspective which treats the mother and child as separate. If you take a moment and think back to a few minutes before the baby was born, that’s not really the case. There are myriad connections between the mother and the child, aren’t there? Indeed, the most prominent one is the umbilical cord. Until the umbilical cord is cut, the baby and the mother are connected in a very literal, physical sense. Then think back nine months earlier to the baby’s conception. The zygote certainly existed as soon as the conception took place. And even before the point of conception, the baby existed in some latent form, for the baby’s existence is dependent upon both a mother and a father (we’re not advanced enough to do this any other way commonly—yet). And where did the mother and father come from? From the same process as the baby did. And while it’s easy to see the mother and the baby as inseparable, in fact the baby’s father is just as inseparable from the baby as well. That’s why the baby grew out of the world rather than into the world.

Imagining you come into the world leads you to believe that you might be some sort of isolated incident. However, if you turn it around and imagine growing out of the world, then it’s much easier to feel part of what’s going on, and to understand the grander scheme of things.