Having a break from visiting friends and family, I stroll, in perfect weather, through the streets of Berlin, for the first time in 32 years. The refreshing ‘Berliner Luft’ (Berlin air) soothes my ageing lungs while I rejoice at the sight and vibe of this rejuvenated ‘City of Peace’. Passing through the ‘Brandenburg Gate’ to the former east feels strange yet enormously liberating. Soon ‘Checkpoint Charlie’, now a museum, brings back memories from a very different era. A bit further down the road I ‘hit the wall’, minus the death strip and guard towers I remember so well. Resting on a bench I ponder at this small section of a concrete structure left standing as a reminder of a wall that once imprisoned a nation and divided the world.
Dividing walls of matter were built throughout history to keep people in, out or segregated. They are a physical form of human thought and easily noticed, as is everything we build or produce.
Walls of the mind however, often lie dormant or undetected and they carry the potential to create division and segregation within society and oneself. Fear and envy create walls. People imprison themselves and segregate others within the walls of hatred and arrogance. A lack of communication skills or self-confidence creates walls of social confinement. We may find ourselves confined within the walls of narrow mindedness or ignorance.
In contrast, I reflect on my recent travels, catching up with numerous longstanding and long lost friends and relatives in various places of the globe, and found no walls exist between us.
The human mind is malleable, adaptable and open to re-programming. If we were able to bring down one of most infamous physical products of negative human thought, such as the ‘Berlin Wall’, there is no reason why we can’t do the same to the walls of our own mind.