Friday Night at 8; Staying Human

So many of us have been writing about events that tear at the human soul, from hatred and ill treatment of our fellow human beings to the ultimate evil, torture.

I’ve learned so much of tragedy, from Winter Rabbit’s essays on how Native Americans and their precious culture are treated, to Robyn’s essays on having to fight to even go into the ladies’ room without fear of attack.  And those are only two examples.

Now there are going to be hearings this upcoming week on torture.

I wonder how I can stay human with such deep knowledge of the evil we can do to each other.

I think of what I hate.

And I believe in order to stay human, I also need to think about what I love.

I’ll tell you, sometimes it’s hard.  Sometimes I despair.

(courtesy of YouTuber SidewalksOfNY315)

I think, “oh I love the seashore, I love to hear the waves crashing on the beach.”  And then like a demon a voice says to me “well too bad, Kitty, we’ve destroyed the planet and soon there won’t be any beaches to enjoy nor waves, the sound of the sea.”

Well you get my drift.  Thinking about material things or even nature doesn’t do it for me these days.

So I think about what I love.  It’s such a small thing, and it doesn’t last more than a few moments most times, at least not for me.  But when that light appears it just doesn’t matter to me that there is so much evil in the world, I am happy and I feel love.

I call it the human connection.

We’re so conditioned in our culture.  We have good manners or bad manners, we see people and say hello and make friends and then it all falls apart, or becomes different, an obligation rather than a joy.  We love, but we don’t always connect.

I think that’s why so many of us are here at the blogs.  We’re searching for that connection through actions that are important to us, we want to save the world, we want to make it better, we want people not to suffer when there are solutions to be had for that suffering.

And every now and then we make a connection with each other and it is pure joy.  Doesn’t matter what the subject, doesn’t matter whether it’s online or in the world, with a stranger or someone we’ve known forever.

We connect.

And when we connect, we share existence with each other.  There’s more than enough for everyone, there’s such abundance it makes one dizzy!   We share.  We share.

Hurting other people, be it through marginalization or all the way to torture, destroys that connection, narrows the view, brings poverty amid all the abundance of existence.

There was a comment over at the orange in Buhdy’s essay (linked above), someone who said they were so afraid of seeing what Sheldon Whitehouse promised would be information about how we treated other human beings that would sear our souls.  They were so afraid to even know.  

And I felt that connection with the commenter, I don’t even remember his or her name, my heart went out to that commenter.

What do I love?  I love being able to be who I am knowing I am not hurting someone else.  That doesn’t happen often, I bash into people or they bash into me, and there is conflict, fear and ego make us hold ourselves and our hearts apart and refuse to share and it is so painful.

For those of us who have been immersed in the fight for human rights, for justice in that pursuit, I think it is important to stay human, to share our hearts and our existence with others, to believe in that abundance and never let ourselves forget why we are struggling for this, to make a world where we have more and more opportunity to share with each other, to lay down our arms and take down our walls.

There is no limit to compassion and love, there is no limit or boundary to our existence.

That’s what I love.  And as long as I remember that, I know I will stay human.

In the coming weeks and months our fellow human beings are going to find out some awful information, painful information.  I hope we all will try to look first to see their pain before we assume they are not on our side when it comes to human rights.

Friday, Friday, what a week!  Hope everyone is well and a happy Friday to all.