Humanness
“Humanness; representative of or susceptible to the sympathies and frailties of human nature - human kindness or a human weakness”
What does it mean to be human?
A loaded question that often brings up further questions rather than succinct answers.
I’m sure hundreds of eminent Psychologists, Professors and Philosophers have their take on it, yet the answers are diverse and inconclusive.
The German Philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche says this:
“The hour-hand of life. Life consists of rare, isolated moments of the greatest significance, and of innumerably many intervals, during which at best the silhouettes of those moments hover about us. Love, springtime, every beautiful melody, mountains, the moon, the sea-all these speak completely to the heart but once, if in fact they ever do get a chance to speak completely. For many men do not have those moments at all, and are themselves intervals and intermissions in the symphony of real life.”
I choose this way of looking at being human. These moments of gentle awareness.
Life and being human exists in these small snippets of noticing. The day to day mundane acts that we need to just be in life can be broken with these tiny (often insignificant to others) moments of recognition of the magic inhabit.
In my early morning quiet moments, which I have come to treasure, no matter how short, often provide me with this joy and delight. These are the moments that help me to feel more human and to show up as a better human in life.
The birds dancing and flitting through the trees.
The red morning sky burgeoning out of the darkness.
The Autumn leaves fluttering in the breeze.
They instil in me the awareness of the extraordinary in the mundane, help me to feel more connected to the dance of life and to accept that beauty exists no matter what.
I listened to Carolyn Cowan describe it thus. “The Universe showing you it’s feathers” and that has stayed with me.
In our day to day we get lost in the broken, in the search for what is wrong rather than seeing the connectedness, the wholeness and the reality that even in the broken there is immense beauty.
In my day to day client work I see these moments too.
Release. Realisation. Acceptance. Awareness.
And then the chance to be in the wholeness, no matter how momentarily.
It is truly wonderful to be present with another human in that process and why I love what I do.
Can you release the search for broken?
Can you accept your frailties and your gifts?
Can you sit quietly in the dance of life and be a part of the immense beauty of your own humanness?
“And so, onwards... along a path of wisdom, with a hearty tread, a hearty confidence.. however you may be, be your own source of experience. Throw off your discontent about your nature. Forgive yourself your own self. You have it in your power to merge everything you have lived through- false starts, errors, delusions, passions, your loves and your hopes- into your goal, with nothing left over.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
