Humanity is such a strange thing- isn't it? In light of the recent presidential election and all of the ugly backlash that has come from both sides, I have begun to question what being human actually means. Websters Dictionary defines a human being as follows,
" Human Being: hu·man be·ing noun. a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance."
While this definition is scientifically correct, I would argue that being human is much more than our species and the orientation of which we walk. Have you ever sat in a crowded space and just observed the people around you? Some people call it "people watching," and at my school, Mary Washington, it has almost become its own sport. We even have benches specifically for our version of people watching, that we call "bench sitting." One can learn a lot about a person by sitting back and observing them, and perhaps even more about themselves. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we consider our time to be more valuable than the people that we fill it with- leaving little time for moments to notice those around us.
Tuesday, November 22, was a day like any other, so it seemed. People were rushing around, caught up in their routines, entrenched in their own lives, leaving them so absent from reality that they might as well be in an empty room. I too was in a solitary mindset as I was waited for the bus to take me home for Thanksgiving, but in a moment- as if someone inside of me flipped a switch- I found myself asking those same questions about humanity, but this time, instead of opening up the dictionary, I began to look to those around me for answers.
It was in this very moment that I became extremely aware of the people around me. The woman working the ticket window, who had been so rude to me when I went up to ask a question, was no longer just an ill mannered stranger. She was a fellow human being- and once I was able to look past her abrasive speech I noticed that she looked rather sad and tired as she began to doze off behind the glass booth. I looked up from my ponder and noticed a man, in his mid-to-late 30s, entrenched in this little black leather book. It was an old book, the name on the binding had long since been worn off, but it was loved. As the bus pulled into the station he smirked at the pages as if parting with an old friend and placed the little book into a pocket near his breast.
I boarded the bus and got settled in my place along side a sleeping stranger as we departed from the station. Entrenched in this feeling of oneness with those around me, I started considering humanity again. About this time I looked to my left to see the young man from the station was seated in front of me and, once again, was nose deep in that little black leather book. This time, however, I could see it's contents and by the looks of the print it didn't take long for me to recognized it. Having grown up in a Christian school all my life, I read the Bible through a few times- but this one was different than those I saw in the pews at mass on Sundays. This one was marked up- with highlights and sticky notes- this one was loved. He must have read over 10 pages in the few minutes I observed him and at the last page, that tenth page, rested but one sticky note that said in bold lettering one word: Love.
That's it. Humanity. That's what makes us more than just a species with higher level thinking and the ability to walk on two feet- our choice to love. (I mention love is a choice because although it is an ability we all posses, it is not always one we choose to use.) I then began considering what the world would be like if we loved one another with the same compassion we show to stray dogs on the street. That's something that has always astonished me, the universal "aw" reaction that occurs when a dog appears out of no where- yet, we are so against reaching out a hand, let alone acknowledging, people we don't know.
We all sort of go through monotonous days like this, don't we? Where our bodies drone through life, as if on autopilot. Our eyes become glassy and we make longer eye contact with the floor than we do with those around us in the hopes that we can escape the suffocatingly busy room without bumping into someone we know. Because today has been hard, and we are tired, and if we have to socialize with even one more person our heads may overheat and our day will be completely ruined. But our definition of hard is relative, and while we look down at the floor in an effort to close others off, there is a man in the corner of the room making a deal with himself that if just one person smiles at him today he will go on living till tomorrow. And that woman, there at the ticket booth, who's falling asleep at her window is tired because she's been up all night holding the hand of her dying son, making sure that in his final moments he knows that he is loved. It's not that we don't care, we would if we only knew, but you can't see all that in the reflection of the floor.
