“The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.” Mahatma Gandhi 

I am even getting tired about writing about writing, so I can only imagine how you feel. I kind of stuck myself with this idea of telling you about what I am doing, whether it has anything to do with a story or not. I have already admitted to having trouble finding my way through this mess we are in. It is so goddamn hard to ignore. I guess if I was into fiction, this stuff would just push me further into the make believe.

Well, I am in the here and now and I got whacked upside my head, wondering how so many people could be acting the way they are. There is a kind of cruelty in the air and it smells awful. Being academically unqualified to the class of paper weight, it is a comfort to know that I can speak with absolutely no authority, a very liberating spot, if you ask me.

Acting with kindness or cruelty are choices we make. I started wondering about the beginnings of our behavior towards one another. Based on my incredible background in this anthropological itinerary, I don’t have the slightest fucken idea, which means imagination rules, at least on this page.

At some point, quite early in our evolution, the idea of hanging out together had to happen. I wonder if these initial thoughts were from a place of comfort or fear. I would think in those hysterically early days, physicality took priority over ideas. Those were tough times and a lot of bad shit was going down. There were some wicked, ugly ass creatures roaming around back in the day and there were no leash laws. Preservation versus negotiation was a no contest deal. 

I don’t know how socialization occurred amongst our predecessors. What happened if two kids started playing, “I Will Kill You With This Rock?” Did their parents intercede and start drawing on cave walls to communicate? I just wonder about how we have evolved to become MAGA, where differences are all that matters. I was just wondering if there was anything like the Cave Aid Society? The palm and the fist are not that different, governed by the same heart. 

We are a species that began turning on each other, not unlike other sentient beings, but the playbook was much thicker for us. Our intelligence took us way beyond their playing fields, involving only things like food and mate selection. 

The differences between us were perceived as threats and I wonder how that first happened. I wonder who invented fear and how it became such a powerful force. Back in the day of the knuckle scrapers, I don’t think trust was a given. Survival was based on being alert to your surroundings. You become dangerous living in dangerous times. This is something I’m gonna come back to.

In the midst of all this, I wonder when we became aware of being smarter than everyone and everything we shared this planet with. That kind of dominance had to be its own kind of intoxication, vulnerable to excess and a victim of it. Somewhere, in the midst of all this, insecurity somehow creeped into the formula, logic falling victim to paranoia. Imagined threats took on the same importance as real ones. 

Now, let’s take a look at the definition of human being. Of course, it is our definition, because it is our language: superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance. My unquestioned support has to go along with the posture qualifier. We love to see ourselves as unique, as opposed to sitting on top of a cellular progression of the moment. The height of our arrogance is to say that being humane is “marked by compassion, sympathy or consideration for humans or animals.”

These kind of glowing evaluations made for great copy, but that’s not how the world happened. As soon as we were able, we started carving out our territory, long before the words real and estate were put together. You belonged to some kind of social entity, too. I think violence was normal, because it was everywhere, continually giving birth to new configurations of power and dominance.

We have been on the same playing fields for thousands and thousands of years. The rules of our behavior have never changed. Human beings live by completely different rules than the rest of all other life here, always have. We have never once come together as human beings and we never will. 

In its 4 1/2 billions years, the earth is finally falling prey to one of its inhabitants, human beings. The earth never loses, it just changes. To me, there is no question we are heading for a kind of Thelma and Louise scenario. The idea of us having “superior mental development” reminds me of a possible South Park episode. Greed is as powerful as gravity and its overabundance is causing earth to realign itself to correct the imbalance. 

Our future is not for sale and it is priceless anyway. At a time when the only possible way to avoid this catastrophe of our own doing is to come together, we are driving farther and farther apart from each other. By the way, money loves this schism, because it leaves even more for them.

Now, let’s get back to my doctoral thesis on human behavior. What we are doing, we have always done. We have always defined ourselves by our differences, each having its own unique valuation scheme. We have used technology to trick nature into doing what we wanted. The idea of being humane has been merely that. 

One of the things we actually have going for us is our adaptability, running neck and neck with our stupidity. The world is going to change, because we refuse to do so. As humans, we have primarily faced changes at our own hand, dealing so poorly with each other. Global warming has passed fail safe, at least in my incredibly, unscientific opinion. We cannot undo the changes to date and we refuse to mitigate what’s coming. The world is going to keep changing and we will likely be left with a checkerboard of livable environments. 

When you change the rules of the game, the players have to adjust. Our survival as a species is going to depend upon how good a job we do. Certainly, our history is no cause for optimism. We have always been a threat to our own survival.

I got a great idea for a story, but it sounds incredibly trite. Let’s say we end up dealing with fragments of societies, a global jig saw puzzle with pieces that cannot fit together. One by one, these disparate groups realize that their survival is based on cooperation and fairness with each other. Finally, they found the time to see what we had done to each other and to their home. 

No, you can’t rewrite history, but you can invent a better future.

LISTEN TO IT HERE:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/17915991-being-human