Every single life on this on this planet has the same rights. The right to have just that, a life. Society as a whole has become so self-centred, so obsessed by personal gain that too many believe this life is a competition with other human beings. They hurtle themselves towards a self-imposed finishing line never truly stopping to appreciate the beauty of the world rushing past them. People whom see other people’s failures and setbacks as fuel to their self-importance fire. Don’t get me wrong a person with drive and ambition to accomplish their goals is an amazing thing to witness in a world that wants to beat your dreams out of you with financial stipulation and a swift drop kick to your dignity. It’s the people who use their job title or social standing to place themselves on a pedestal and believe that they are somehow more important than anyone else.
No single person on this planet is above anyone else. These people create titles and roles for themselves to boost their ego, to inflate an already grotesque large head and add more divinity to a god complex well established they believe themselves beyond the realms of mere mortals. It’s this illusion of importance that leads to cultural divides. Leads people to think less of themselves because they don’t have some sort of combination of letters at the end of their names or a house with more rooms than an eight storey game of Cluedo. It becomes a race of material possessions. A glorified sense of emotional stability guaranteed by vast quantities of “stuff”. It’s with this wanton greed that creates such animosity between thrives of people. It strips them of their very humanity by emphasising a falsity of inanimate worship. Creating almost a religion out of materialism, an altar at the feet of gods of pointlessly fast cars and big screen televisions.
Smartphones have become more of a social status than mere hunks of plastic and microchips. A world where an apple logo on the back means your better than someone who just figured out to how to get polyphonic ringtones for his blockia. When your phone costs almost the equivalent of two months’ rent you might want to start reconsidering some priorities you’ve set in life. Look just because your phone can instantly identify that guy you saw in some movie today and couldn’t remember his name or can tell me the level or precipitation expected tomorrow doesn’t, make you some greater ensemble of blood and muscle. Just because you bought an overpriced mini computer and telephone marketed as a a smart phone doesn’t mean it affects your actual IQ. So if you people can stop acting like you’re an endless fountain of knowledge and usefulness just you have fast acting internet access in your front pocket that would be fantastic. We’ve become a world of smart phones and dumb people.
Technology has become such an ingrained part of the human experience that it has created a reliance on machines that has never been witnessed in natural history. This need for technology has helped humanity copy its possessions in small traits. They become inanimate objects. Just look around you and the evidence is a harsh reality. Watch any person or group of people 25 years old or below and you’ll see their mobile phone becomes almost an extension of them. At any moment’s notice instead of watching the world and life go on around them their heads slump in a dead pan stare to a flashing light emitting from rectangular piece of plastic. Observe any group of teenagers anywhere and you’ll see the only eye contact or acknowledgement they give each other is such a rapid and sparse affair that so rarely happens it becomes almost an extinct human trait.
As human beings we are slowly allowing technology to become our main communication tool with each other. We are severing our ties with each other on such an emotional human level that I sometimes fear that future generations will become so dependent on technology that social skills will develop in a more staggered way. It’s very hard to hear the emotion in words and phrases when there on a screen in front of you. People become less emotionally aware of others around them when they never see or hear the emotional and human side of humanity. I believe emotional development as well as core education staples should be important parts of education. With better communication and reasoning we could create more empathy and relationships with each other. And I think more than ever the world needs a sense of oneness and equality in order to help guide us all to further reaches in our humanity.
More than ever we as a species must finally look past the mere physical difference’s that have created divides and injustices in our society. These superficial attributes have caused so many lives to become obsolete and less important than others. We must pick each other up and move triumphantly into the future with love and compassion. We must cast aside the mental blocks society has thrust upon us. We must dismantle these illusions of importance and level out the playing field of humanity so that no person gets left behind and become lost to the sands of time. Our reliance on materialism and consumerism has helped us erect emotional barriers that we must tear down with kindness and love. This is an endeavour our entire species must make. Try every day to look at the human side of life. Next time you ask someone how they are go more in depth. Go beyond the regimented response of ignoring their reply almost immediately. Look into the soul behind the flesh and you’ll discover things you never knew. Bring light to a world that wants you to fade into darkness. Become the very thing we forget we are sometimes.
Be human. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s all we were born to be.
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
-Desmond Tutu
Another Way To Go 