humanity

we all have it.
opinions notwithstanding about how we love, who we love, what we do, and how we live, where we live or what we’re going through.
we all breathe.
we all think.
we all release waste.
we all need.
we all want.
we all sleep.
we all eat.
we all drink.
we begin to hate once we begin to dehumanize each other. when we live in ignorance of each other’s lived experiences and we can harm each other in the worst way. sometimes, i sit in a room full of people and i ask myself, “how will they die?” somehow, when putting people in the context of death, i change the way i respond to them, even if their response to me is negative/unpleasant/etc. for some reason, understanding that we’ll all die changes the way i understand my interactions with people who are alive and before me. it inspires empathy.
this makes it a lot more difficult to understand the atrocious acts of violence that we commit against each other. the mother putting her toddler in the oven. the father killing his entire family. the serial killer. the teenage son decapitating his mother. the man shooting up schools or the students bullying a girl until she commits suicide.
it makes it a lot more difficult to condemn them all to hell (which is something i don’t have a concept of) or to write them off as being any less human.
it also makes it a lot more difficult to not be angry. Angry at the arrogance it takes for another human to decide whether or not a fellow person who has been alive should live or die. Or the disregard for the basic needs that each body has or the pain it takes to live in this world. This world is difficult only because we make it so. If we are already promised trouble, why do we continue to give it to each other? I’ll be damned if I’ll suffer at the hands of another human in a space and a time that I only get to inhabit once.
When angry or sad or upset or even happy, I allow myself to feel those emotions for what they are. But I also try to sit in myself and breathe deeply. Become aware of my breath entering my body and leaving my body. I try to feel every part of myself and feel the spaces that this idea of “me” should fit in. And I remember that each person I encounter takes up the same amount of space in their bodies as well.
Mental health/illness can affect that; this awareness of spatial existence, etc. I am absolutely not ignoring the presence of mental illness in our society, but in fact, understanding that able-bodied folk, often dehumanize those who suffer in these conditions as well.
The root cause of suffering isn’t violence. It’s dehumanization, insensitivity, and lack of reverence of life. Can science or religion be blamed? Who taught us to see each other as being less human? Enough to kill, sell, harm, hurt?
I claim my humanity. I deserve to live. I deserve to be free. I deserve to be unharmed. I deserve to be loved. I deserve to give love. I deserve to have peace. I deserve to die naturally and not at the hands of anyone else. I deserve life.
And so do you.
#justsaying

i’m learning to love me, love you, love animals, nature, and everything in between.