Rehumanize Yourself

We are an angry nation.

Why is this so?

One could write several doctoral dissertations on the topic of how humanity coped or did not cope during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Most recently, I am reminded of a tweet that I saw and saved for posterity a few days ago on 8/26. Josh Moon said…

“One thing that about this pandemic that I’ll remember forever is the way many people got irrationally angry at people who were trying to help them. Angry at scientists. Angry at teachers. Angry at doctors. Angry at anyone who told them helpful info they didn’t want to hear.”

He is not wrong. This underlying anger, fueled by fear and hate, serves the darkest angles of our natures. The anger, fear, and hatred are real. These emotions need to be acknowledged. Emotions are a natural, human response; we all have them. It is, however, what we do with them that defines us. Is our reason swept away, robbed from us by serving some mob mentality? Or do we ask ourselves the deceptively simple question, “Why?” We, as thinking, rational human beings must search ourselves and ask the hard questions, why am I angry? Why does what I do not understand frighten me? Why do I hate?

If we can examine ourselves, if we can be honest with ourselves, and if we can reason for ourselves, then we can channel these negative emotional responses into something better – something positive. This takes an act of will, an act of humanity on the part of each of us. Do we join the unthinking mob, or do we join humanity and ask ourselves the hard question of “Why?”

We need a mass re-humanization, sooner rather than later. As human beings, we have the capacity to be so much more than what we are. The capacity to look beyond ourselves, beyond our own needs & desires – to look and see how we can lift others up instead of tearing them down, to help instead of hinder, to do what is right for everyone and not simply for ourselves.

Here, in the United States, our humanity has been compromised by politics. The simple act of wearing a mask and getting a vaccination to help stop a world-wide pandemic that has claimed over 4.5 million lives – 637,280 of them right here in the United States – is questioned by those who have chosen the whims of the mob over betterment of humanity.

Those who cry, “My body, my choice!” I hope you remember that phrase when it doesn’t only apply to your own situation – your own ‘needs’. I’ve seen some ugliness from people who have only been thinking of themselves for the last year and a half – we all have. Today, you could make that choice to rejoin humanity and do what is best for all, instead of acting or not acting out of selfishness due to anger, fear, and hate.  The excuses only go so far - the vast majority of them have no footing in reason.

It is past time to grow up.

It is not a political issue. It is a public health issue.

The Delta variant is filling hospital beds, taking such beds away from others who need them. Vaccinating would ease this pressure. It would be good for you, good for them, good for everyone. The mob destroys, humanity builds.

It is time to build.

Rehumanize Yourself.