Living, Breathing Humans

No one said you had to agree with someone else’s life for you to recognize them as human.

Human. That’s what we all are. Different, yes. But no matter the differences, we are all human. And no one life is any more important than any other. No one way of living is any better than any other way of living. 

Except one. And that’s living our lives in such a way that we make space for everyone else to be treated as humans too. Not just ourselves and people like us, and the people we love. But all people, treated like people.

It feels like a novel concept right now. For all of the compassion in the world these days, there is also visceral hatred. A lot of hatred, flowing just below the surface and emerging in huge swells that pull us all into darkness. 

We are living in a darkening world.

I’m someone who likes to see the good in every day. All the beauty is still here, but it’s cast in shadows right now. Because we can’t seem to see that other people around us are people. Living, breathing humans with hopes and dreams, just like we have. Living, breathing humans with people who would shatter if they were gone. Just like we have people who would shatter if we were gone.

I’m lucky. Privileged. To my knowledge, I am not a target of anyone’s burning hatred. And every day, I’m treated humanely by other humans. It’s taken me a long time to realize how lucky that makes me. That people may not agree with my choices, but no one tries to take away my right to make my own choices. No one has ever tried to make it illegal for me to be myself.

A trans kid in Arkansas receiving health care does not prevent you from having access to health care. A human with asian heritage is not responsible for a global pandemic. Believing that black lives matter does not make your life matter any less. It just means acknowledging that humans are human.

It’s unbelievable how poorly we treat each other in person. The horrible words we say in face to face interactions. Punches get thrown and plenty of stronger violence too. When we are standing in front of each other, you would think that would be the time we can see the human in front of us. But we can’t. Or at least we pretend that we don’t.

Then there is how we treat other people online. The internet is where we can pretend the human on the receiving end of our hatred isn’t really a human. We pretend that they are a character in a game, an NPC that doesn’t operate in the outside world. We see an algorithm-built punching bag and not the human on the other end. Then we log off and pretend like we’re a great person without even considering the damage we’ve caused another human. 

Because we needed to make someone else feel smaller so that we could feel bigger. Because we are so caught up in needing our way of life to be the right way of life for everyone. Because it’s much harder to ask someone why and actually listen to their words than it is to dismiss them. We live so afraid of discovering that we might be wrong that we double down on our rightness. Then we stick our fingers in our ears and refuse to listen.

But while we are standing there blocking everything out, we are ignoring one simple fact: We are not always right. And our beliefs and our way of living do not work for everyone. There isn’t a correct way to be a human. Like jeans, lifestyles will never be one size fits all.

No one needs to ask for our permission to take up space in the world.