Wednesday 3 December 2014

How to be Human

Truth-tellers may lie
Victors may lose
Lovers may hate
Laughers may cry
The strong may feel weak
The honoured may lose their dignity
Those who hope may choose to give up.

They may... because that is what makes them human. Humans cannot be painted with one stroke. We are sometimes, and sometimes we are not. We're never fully at one end, nor are we ever fully in the very middle. We teeter and we slide back and forth in an endlessly unpredictable uncertain way. How fickle, we humans? How unfaithful.

But, then again, maybe that's what it means to be human. To acknowledge the real possibility that imperfection may actually be the most perfect condition for humanity. To appreciate the experience of imperfection as a necessity prerequisite to even begin to fathom what is perfect. And to confess the reality that you are just as far removed from perfect as the bloke sitting next to you.

We need to fall into deep, dank holes in order to understand how worthwhile it is on the surface. And when you finally muster up the courage to own up to the world that you're stuck, the bloke that was in his own deep, dank hole next to yours the whole time will build a tunnel to yours. Then you'll call out together for help and soon realize that pretty much everyone is stuck in their own deep, dank hole. A whole network of tunnels will begin to form and... now you're all sitting in a deep, dank hole together.

Together is important. Because together means we're not alone. And we're not alone means: "oh, you too?", which means we weren't as crazy as we thought we were. It is only there that we'll realize that we are simply, human. That for us, impossibilities exist and "can't" is real, and that is quite okay.

But within that imperfect, deep dank hole... we will not settle.
Because when we embrace our lies,
and loss,
and hatred,
and tears,
and weakness,
and shame,
and destitution...
We will understand the merit in truth,
and victory,
and love,
and laughter,
and strength,
and honour,
and hope.

We'll begin to dream of higher, better and brighter. And understanding our fallibility and our limitations, we'll know we won't be able to do it on our own. This, I believe, is how to be human... to take our capable and dependable masks off and wear who we truly are on our sleeves... vulnerable, and scared, with tails between our legs. Until we get there, we'll walk through our lives knowingly attributing ourselves to what we are actually not. We'll walk through our lives knowingly taking credit for something we are incapable of. That is a life without purpose and without truth. It is a life lived without giving room to the being who is capable, who is dependable, and who is perfect.





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