What makes it difficult to be a Human?

Updated: May 27

Erwin Raphael once said We are that one unique species that doesn’t seem to know how to be human even though that’s the only species we are.

What makes us human- I think Our capacity to imagine and create a future for us can be the most fundamental characteristic which can help us to see ourselves as HUMAN. This capacity to imagine and create be related to our role as creator. Out of this role as a creator, we are creating machines that can do our work, robots who can behave the way we like them to; we are building massive towers where we want people to come for work and live. Not only that, but we are also creating societies and cultures in which we want to live, grow, and prosper, peacefully and happily. Are you happy in the society or culture which we humans have created?

I also believe that our role as a creator is fueled by our feelings and emotions, which empower us to solve problems and create something better for us. Our perception influences these emotions and feelings and our way of thinking, and the same get influenced by how we feel. Living in a society is also one of the characteristics which help us define ourselves as humans. As to live in this world full of humans, we long for connections and relations.

What do I mean by society- According to one definition which I retrieved from Wikipedia, society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Every human has their own experiences and ways of thinking. Everybody feels differently about different things and hence has different expectations. But does society provide everyone room to fulfill its expectations of itself, when the essence of society lies in having dominant cultural expectations? If the answer is yes, then society must see everyone as the same, with the same thought process and feelings, whereas everyone is different.

The difficulty-So, if the answer to this is NO, then what happens to us as a human living in society is that we might find ourselves being controlled by every aspect of society. I define those aspects as our friends, relatives, spouse, partners, and other members of the community who wants us to act and behave in a prescribed manner. I agree that there has to be some order, but don’t you think we are expecting too much order from everyone around us? Don’t you think, In, amidst all this, we are ignoring the aspect that people do have different feelings which we might not experience the way they do? I feel that our ability to experience feelings and emotions differentiates us from robots.

Do you think our lack of understanding of other person feelings and expectations that they should act and behave the way we want them to be is creating the society which we aspire to and desire? Do you think it is appropriate for us to judge everyone without understanding what that person has been through? Do you think all these expectations of our society from us allow us to live freely? Do you believe in the absence of validation of our emotions and feelings, we can live at peace with ourselves and with those with whom we want to live? Do you think due to all these prevailing situations we can imagine freely and act and behave like a human?

Hence expectations of your society, roadblocks to imagining and acting freely, absence of validation of your emotions and feelings are some of the factors that may be acting in a way that you might not feel the way you should feel and that is being human. However, even if these factors may be affecting you to live a life peacefully yet don’t you think that you can make things better for yourself and others even in conditions that might not be supportive. I am committed to providing you with a safe place to share your experiences, understand them and find ways to manage difficult situations more easily so that you may start feeling the way you are and that is being human.

Gurveen Singh

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*Reposted with permission from author. Original blog post: https://www.feelbettercounselling.com/post/what-makes-it-difficult-to-be-a-human