In today’s world filled with complexities and confusion, maybe the human experience has become just a little too plastic, dehumanized, lacking realization of the simplicity involved with just being human. Perhaps it’s time we stopped to take a sincere inventory of our fundamental values. Where are we going? Is the human element to be lost in the development of the technological world of tomorrow?
Couples are sitting across from one another in restaurants or social settings looking down at their phones, scrolling, and scrolling. Looking into the future, one can see there is a world where we no longer speak out loud. Instead of typing phrases to one another in silence or worse, there will be an implant in the brain that electronically sends sentences to each other. Will we lose our ability to speak in the future? Is the future of verbal communication on the cusp of extinction? Pray we never lose our ability to speak out loud the words ‘I love you.’
It is time to think.
The human trek, filled with many of its influences, has one pillar of strength, full of advice, knowledge, and guidance. The very essence of human understanding is the passing down of information from generation to generation. Without the exchange of prior knowledge, our future is in danger of extinction. Instead, we lock our elders away to die without listening to the stories and lessons they hold. They have traveled the road before us. They have the map, and we refuse to hear what they have to share. ‘We know it all’ is the answer we give them as we turn the key on the lock. After a lifetime of gathering experience, a person deserves compassion and love, if not that, at least dignity and a chance to be heard.
It is time to share.
One value human beings frequently forget is to show compassion for their fellow man, and this is the whole ‘human experience’. A civilization void of compassion holds discrimination in one hand and alienation in the other for all its victims. The abuses inflicted upon each other, the insults we tend to remember long after the wounds heal, fester into a world of hate and neglect that get passed on to the next generation. It’s time to show a little compassion for one another and return to a simpler tempo where other lives mean something. The music of life depends on our ability to accept each other’s disparities.
It is a time for compassion.
After doing things the same way for so long, there must be change. As concerned members of the human race, we must look within ourselves and find a new direction, a new inner peace. The ‘virus’ is on everyone’s minds, creating the combative sense that all is lost. During this time of solitude and separation, discovering inner peace within your soul will allow each of us to attain a feeling of well-being. Once you’ve achieved this, it’s easier to have an outward peace for one another—the Zen Buddhist teaching. The rules are simple: Don’t overthink, don’t manipulate your thoughts, and don’t direct your heart, let your heart lead itself. Buddha himself, in the renowned Flower Sermon, held up a flower to answer the question, “What is the meaning of life? What is truly real?”
It is a time for contemplation.
The adage, “Stop and Smell the Roses,” helps to reiterate all these ideas. We need to take time and ‘tune in’ to our minds and hearts. It would make us open to accept what comes our way. Creating the ability to take what life presents to us, finding out where we want to go with it, and, finally, growing into what we want to be. It is the human ordeal, the meat of the subject that we must address. It ‘IS’ the ultimate concern. The future is fast becoming the present, and the current will soon be the past. It’s time for the asking of questions and the seeking of answers. It’s time to find the healing process to attain a clean slate.
It becomes our proverbial ‘second chance’:
time to think
time to share
time for compassion
time for contemplation
It is time to be… human.
