Months ago I learned about Professor John Powell's work at Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute, about how Western society engenders a separation from self, a separation from others, and a separation from the Earth.
Before that, when the second Avatar came out, I read about how the first Avatar seemed to be the only multi-billion grossing movie that didn't spawn entire franchises, fandoms, merch, or memes. Fans of the movie seemed to want nothing but to be able to live in the Avatar world, so much so that they would watch the movie repeatedly and lament the state of our reality.
Fast forward to me on an intercontinental flight, picking a movie to pass the time, and then crying intermittently through the second Avatar. All of humankind's biggest themes are there: greed, violence, exploitation, displacement, survival. And all the connections we keep losing: to our culture, to our land, to our ancestors, to the Earth. Interconnectedness requires that we slow down, that we risk pain, that we grieve losses, that we remember, and that we fight to the death if we have to. It's not for the faint of heart, but the alternative is so much worse.