What is it to be human? (Part 2)
As a human, life sometimes feels like a roller coaster. So many things happen around us that we don't know where to look. We become so deeply entertained by everything that we forget to notice time passing.
We are almost always waiting for something. Waiting for something to happen, something to finish, or something to begin.
It is as though we keep living in the future, forgetting about the present. Once, this present moment was the future we were waiting for. Now we are living it, and somehow we are already looking ahead again-toward another destination, another goal, another person, or even another version of ourselves.
I think we make life very complicated. Or maybe it really is complicated. I haven't found the answer yet.
What I do know is that we are carried by the stories we live. Sometimes they are joyful and full of color. Sometimes we are simply trying to survive.
If you've noticed, life is full of paradoxes. Happy and sad. Light and dark. Warm and cold.
One only exists because of the other.
Nature understands this well. It moves through sunshine and rain, through summer and winter, without deciding that one season is good and another is bad.
We, humans, experience life in much the same way. We move through different emotions and different seasons of our lives. Yet many of us spend our lives searching for permanent happiness and comfort, as though they are the final destination.
Permanent happiness probably wouldn't even feel like happiness anymore. It might simply become ordinary.
A deep sense of relief comes after a difficult chapter, like climbing a mountain. You struggle with every step, and then one day you reach the top. You stand there, looking back at everything you climbed through, and suddenly the view is beautiful because of the effort it took to get there. Those moments are part of what makes being human so meaningful.
Many of us are overthinkers. We think about the present, worry about the future, or replay the past. It is as though we believe every problem can be solved by thinking long enough.
Sometimes, instead of living, we try to solve life.
I'm not sure that's what we are here for.
From the books I've read, and from life itself, I have started to wonder whether we are simply here to experience.
To experience joy and grief.
To experience losing and finding.
To experience beginnings and endings.
We have invented countless words to describe every situation. We label things so we can understand one another. But perhaps life itself is less interested in labels than we are.
Perhaps life is simply happening.
I don't think nature calls winter bad or summer good.
The trees simply move through every season.
And perhaps we do too.
After all, we are part of nature. We just happen to think a little more than the trees. Scientists tell us that makes us intelligent.
Sometimes I wonder whether it simply makes us tired.
What I find most beautiful about humanity is not our intelligence but our ability to care for one another.
We want to be understood.
We want someone to listen.
We want to know that we are not alone in whatever season of life we are living.
Maybe that is one of the reasons you are here, reading these words.
Whatever season you find yourself in today, I hope you remember that you are loved more than you know.
I am deeply grateful that our paths crossed here, through these words.
Let's stay connected and continue experiencing what it is like to be human, together.
With Love
Fateme
