Humanity Ponderings

Originally Written May 16, 2024

The college classes I took in spring of 2024 showed me what it meant to be human. I find most of my peers do not think of capital “h” Humanity as often as I do, even in the classes that encourage such thoughts: Introduction to the Humanities, and English Composition 2.

The study of humans, human history, and what it means to be human; the study of words, messages, and purposeful connection. I did not expect them to feed into each other as wholly as they did.

Did you know humans, the species we know of today, is 200,000 years old? Did you know civilization is only about 10,000 of those years? Recorded histories we can still translate today constitute the beginning of civilization. That is not to say there was not history for 190,000 years, that there was no connections no stories no love no growth to be found: simply that it was not recorded in a way we understand now.

Did you know that humans do not think only in logic, but also in stories? A book I began (but have yet to finish) called “Storythinking: The New Science of Narrative Intelligence” by Angus Fletcher proposes that we do not think solely in the logical analysis of the tangible but that storytelling is a kind of processing and thinking in and of itself.

The concept alone rings true deep within me. Of course I think in stories; fact and logic are only as powerful as the connection you form to them, the value you associate with them. We need to understand why the facts are important because they evoke an emotion within us that drive us to act. Facts without feeling are doomed to be coated in dust.

I think humans, as a species and life form, hold the same goal as all other living things: to grow. We all crave in our bones the height growth of trees; the fuel of food like a fire; the need to process like a plant processes sunlight: with purpose and patience with no idea how the process is done but knowing it will sustain us.

I think this need to grow expands beyond our cells and biology but into what makes humans into Humanity: the ability to think beyond ourselves in a way that is forward thinking and reflective. Our connections to each other are what brought humans to the heights of the food chain, our ability to coordinate and communicate is unparalleled. This collective thinking, this collective dreaming, is the spark or spirit or soul of Humanity.

Humanity is the collective dreams of the future, where cars fly and the world is at peace and art flourishes and we live not in tolerance or acceptance but curiosity and joy and support without limits. A world where I am me, and you are you, and we are connected with the goal to grow alongside and because of each other. What a dream to live, what a dream to chase, what a dream to share with my ancestors and my descendants and my peers.

Keep dreaming.