It is an incredible thing — to exist. As a coach, I am fascinated by life and the intricacies of being human.
I have heard stories of despair as well as those of triumph. Instead of life being a conscious stream of thoughts, we appear to oscillate between pain and pleasure, kindness and brutality, good and bad; and everything in between. We don’t like standing still. The quality of our mettle is often measured by our ability to survive hardship and to succeed. Some will say that this is what being human is about.
I am not the only person interested in humanity. We all are. This is the reason videos of funny and tragic moments of life go viral. People want to see what is possible and what is not. We are curious about how we are built and to what limits we can be pushed. As much as we want to see life, we are also drawn to death.
Being human is about being fallible. There is a saying I heard that goes something like this: “The process of death begins at birth.” It sounds macabre, but in a way, it is true. We live so we can die. At our birth, the countdown to our death begins.
I still remember the first time I discovered my mortality at the age of six or seven. I was devastated to realise that one day I could no longer watch television because I would no longer exist. The thought of dying did not scare me as much as the thought of the disappearance of my favourite pastime.
Today, humans look for immortality for different reasons. I don’t know all the reasons people want to live a long life. I only know mine: I want to get to the next century of my life so I can see what we have done and how far we have gone. I am curious about how much humans can achieve and destroy.
The sad thing, I find, about humanity is the time some people spend in fighting over beliefs. There appears to be an assumption (from certain people and groups) that only their way of thinking and living is acceptable. This saddens me greatly. The whole beauty of life is its diversity. It would bore me if everyone looked and thought the same. We throw out sayings such as ‘Opposites Attract’ and yet, arrest or kill those who are different.
Our world has improved from the time of slavery and prejudice, but amazingly, after so many years, they are still there, lurking and walking around us like invisible visitors. It is easier to kill a virus than to change a mind.
Instead of getting more connected as the world progresses, we are getting more disconnected from one another. While technology makes it easier to search and call one other, it also makes it easier for us to hide.
We no longer hand-write letters, we send emails; we don’t knock on a neighbour’s door to see how they are, we text them; we don’t take time to get to know a person; we use computer applications or the internet to find out who they are.
I wonder if our ancestors have seen this world for us. Who would have thought that instead of getting more connected to one another, our world is getting more segregated? Let’s all take a moment to reflect for ourselves what being human is all about.
MyMohio 