Separateness
Grandfather Rock, you say?
Separation is an illusion of time. Time is the phenomenological effect of evolution and entropy, growth, and decay. Therefore, separateness is a feature of consciousness, our memory. Our relationships with things outside our control become the most othered. But in a long enough time scale, the minerals in our bones were once rocks and will become rocks again. What makes the parts of you, you? And why don't we see rocks as our ancestors, knowing that our lives depend on their existence?
The temptation to claim separateness does not exist in nature is powerful. However, we are nature, so separateness is too. We can assume that other beings experience a sense of separateness, and the advantage of survival is apparent. But, its advantage becomes a liability when taken to its logical conclusions. Is this a bug or a feature?
When one exists on the side of most-separateness, they may become paranoid, fearful of death, deal with others from a zero-sum perspective, or completely lose a sense of meaning in their lives.
When one exists on the side of least-separateness, they may not be able to fend for themselves, set and achieve goals, express themselves artistically, or defend their loved ones and ideals.
Western culture is very aware and experienced with people and states of consciousness that are far on the side of most-separateness. Cut-throat business practices, theft, self-centered, selfish lifestyles, and authoritarianism are some symptoms of thinking of oneself as entirely separate from the other.
However, the other end of the spectrum is hard for us to even conceive of or recall examples for. But it must be as dangerous as its counterpart. Propagandistic ideals from communist tyrannies, other forms of extreme collectivism, and people who get lost in the depths of psychedelic drugs seem to be close examples.
Extremes highlight tendencies that may exist in mediocrity. One doesn't need aspirations to be a fascist dictator to suffer from the ills of believing themselves separate from the world. One doesn't need to be a pushover pacifist to suffer from being unable to differentiate oneself from society. Most of us gently fluctuate from one side of the spectrum to the other like a bowling ball bouncing from guardrail to guardrail until something collides.
To be aware of such dynamics of consciousness is to become an experimental phenomenologist. This is to say, someone who, by shifting how they experience events, can seek the most elegant approach to their personal experiences, the phenomena of their lives. This is to say, many of the games played in life can have their rules altered: The games played with oneself can be altered at will, and any game that is played to be won can be quit by any player.
Personally, altering the rules of separation and playing with imagination on the subject, particularly in nature, has brought me profound thoughts. It's also given me insight into ecological thinking, "some real hippy shit," as my mind says, but important nonetheless. If some water bottle we threw out the window one time isn't floating on an island of trash in the ocean, then we're eating beef with microplastics in the meat. I may lose track of the chain of cause and effect if I stop paying attention or if enough time elapses, but it's still there, slowly working its way into my cerebral cortex.