While many of you religious zealots might have spent the past week dining with Uncle Harvey and Aunt Edna and praying within the confines of your local temples or synagogues, I (for the first time in 20 years) did nothing of that sort. Instead, I enjoyed my holiday in Montr√É©al, feeling more spiritual than ever before.

Maybe it was the effectual French onion soup, the bohemian beret or the rather ubiquitous, cute French-Canadian women, but something about foreign travel, even if it was just transcontinental travel to Canada, made me feel connected to the human race and to my spirituality.

I assert that my increased spirituality is based on what Jeremy Rifkin, the prominent American economist and political activist, calls ‘universal empathy.’ This idea intends that we can extend our empathy and compassion to the entire human race, as an extended family, with all the creatures of the world as our evolutionary family and the biosphere as our common community.

The development toward a common global community allows us to see this goal.

Before the onset of literacy, the extent of our communication was entirely limited. We mostly communicated through word of mouth, and we stayed in contact with those individuals in our local gene pools. Our perceived world was incredibly small, with natural barriers making other civilizations entirely alien. Empathy only existed within incredibly small circles of people.

The onset of written communication allowed us to transcend many of these spatial barriers. Additionally, the development and diversification of communication skills allowed for increased self-awareness. The onset of these institutions gave way to theological awareness.

Theological awareness transcended a large majority of human association from tribal to religious ties, extending empathy another level. This created a new fiction, where members of the same faith saw each other as part of the same extended family.

The industrial revolution developed into a more encompassing local fiction in the 19th century with the emergence of large-scale markets. This gave rise to the modern state, where nationalities became a way of extending empathy.

In modern times, with the onset of globalization and new types of media, technology can allow individuals across the globe to empathize with one another. The spatial barriers, which once presented major obstacles for empathy, are now obsolete.

In addition, the extension of technology makes it increasingly difficult for cognitive dissonance to resonate. One, through these mediums, is increasingly aware of human rights violations and treachery. There is now no excuse for ignorance.

As I traveled to Canada, with two of my closest friends, we all at some point contacted others via technology. This was a concrete example of cross-border communication; I couldn’t help but notice the potential progression for empathy and humanity.

If we, as individuals, put aside our fictitious differences, such as religion and nationality, we can feel closer to humanity as a whole. One can find common similarities in tangible things, such as things that we do or things we appreciate. These are much more tangible than the arbitrary traits with which we were born or raised.