“If only we could see each other [as we really are] There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed… I suppose the big problem would be then that we would fall down and worship each other.” Thomas Merton
First, I have no idea what has possessed me to write about such a heady subject. I was thinking about all the writing I have done already and what the hell could be left to write about? I seem to vacillate between sharing what’s going in my world and the world around me. It ought to be pretty clear by now that I have no particular expertise in anything at all.
I am already looking out the window, wondering where the hell I can take this story. I know, as a rule, we like to think there are no other living beings at all like us. Darwin’s focus on evolution had more to do with the differences between living creatures, the changes over time and circumstance. Putting us humans at the top of his ladder indicates a kind of singularity, above all others, ego food for hungry souls.
The development of technology has smashed the constancy of so many truths we have been brought up with. Now, we can prove that trees communicate, ants discriminate and fish feel pain. Historically, we have only been focused on our intelligence, for lack of a better word. Being human was a privilege of our species. It helped justify our dominance over all sentient beings, here to serve and satisfy our every whim.
We have obliterated the idea of natural selection by twisting the environment to serve our needs. The home we share with all life here on earth has been mercilessly disrupted to serve us and not nearly all of us either. We discriminate amongst our own, some viewed to be better and more deserving than others. We live our lives as if they are unconnected, straight lines, when we actually all live within a circle of interconnectedness. Driving species into extinction, primarily through habitat destruction and climate change, weakens this wheel, threatening to crush us all.
Our species has been around for about 300,000 years, with ancestors going back a couple of millions years at most. Our first home was somewhere in Africa, making us our own enemy, according to the Klan. Jesus was not white and he didn’t look like Brad Pitt either. Funny, how myths often defy science. We are also recent arrivals, when you consider the horseshoe crab has been around for 500 million years! Darwin had us looking ahead to see where we are going, when where we came from is far more important. We keep repeating our past, because we refuse to look at it and understand it.
Progress is all about shrinking. We work our asses off making smaller and smaller things to do larger and larger tasks. Science focuses on dissecting our world into finite elements, far beyond our ability to see or understand without technology. In a way, it reflects our selfish predisposition, fractions having far more significance than the whole.
Most important decisions and choices made for us are by people living in worlds of concrete and glass. They are very busy and constantly distracted by opportunities to enhance their own self-importance. Fragmentation takes precedence over unity, because a fractured society is much easier to manipulate, pitting one against the other.
The farther we get from nature, the farther we get from our humanity. Urbanization certainly breeds isolation. A simple walk in the woods is medicine for the soul. We seem to have a real aversion to slowing down, out of a fear of missing something. The truth is, the faster we move, the less we see. The natural world is all about rhythm, everything happening exactly the way it is supposed to. Those people in the world of concrete and glass have no idea how to dance, choosing to lead nature, rather than following her, continually stepping on her toes. She will have the last dance and the last laugh.
Without looking at ourselves, we are blind to the plight of our neighbors, regardless of borders. We build empires on the backs of our brothers and sisters. In Gaza, Palestinian lives have no value at all. The entire population is being purposely starved, forced into dehumanizing ghettos, their homeland nothing more than a bombed out crater. Killing children for being children is every day there. Who perpetrates this kind of bestial cruelty? Anyone speaking for them in our country is criminalized and deported. Remember, this is being done by a people, who lived and died in concentration camps! We do this to each other, looking for reasons to justify what can never be justified. We don’t learn from history, blind to its lessons.
Just finishing the above paragraph and I am in tears. How can human beings commit such brutality? What is the justification? I am writing this story, because I don’t understand this level of spiritual depravity. How many of us want to get retribution for suffering by inflicting it on others as soon as we are in a position to do so? Exercising power over others is indicative of a kind of impotence that looks outside for affirmation.
Sometimes, I think, “What the hell is the purpose of swimming against the tide?” My thousand words aren’t going to make a fuck of a difference anyway. There is not a single reason to stop what I am doing when I hear the Boss singing “Land of Hopes and Dreams.” Tickets are free to board the train he sings about. I write what I do, because I am a goddamn passenger, that’s why!
I wrote up at the top that it ls a bit audacious to talk about what it means to be human and the more I write, the less it feels that way. I am writing about being human, about myself. The more time you spend looking inside yourself, the more you understand what goes on outside your skin. When you shoot a starving four year old between the eyes, who do you see in that mirror? When you separate a two year old, American born child from her parents, where is your family and how can they matter? The instigators and perpetrators are equally guilty and you don’t need another goddamn Nuremberg to prove it.
Darwin focused on the science of evolution, looking for answers, looking for order, going from simple to complex. The Buddha was concerned with the questions, leaving the answers for each of us to explore, reducing complexity to simplicity. Science is all about perfection and rules, while being human is about accepting our imperfections and bending rules.
I started writing this, because I honestly don’t understand how human beings can mistreat each other so badly and actually believe they(we) have a right to do it. Discovering new levels of cooperation and communication between those on Darwin’s lower, ladder rungs is causing us to reconfigure what it takes to be a sentient being. The more we learn, the shorter the distance between the rungs. We are not that extraordinary after all.
We are merely human beings. It is time we started acting that way, before we “rung” out of time and fall off the ladder, replaced by ants.
LISTEN TO IT HERE:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/17447045-on-being-human