For a second, let’s forget that we are all, as you read this sentence, spinning on some rock hurtling into the emptiness of vast nothingness. Let’s not bring to mind that our minds are complex computational machines whose workings elude us and the generations of ancestors before us. Assume everything is alright with the countless fictional stories we've accumulated over thousands of years — from money, governments, corporations, national flags, to ideologies many aren't yet ready to confront — and yet necessary for us to navigate life as we know it; an intricate system that evolved beyond our control. If anything, and for this entry to make sense, let us build on that.
Everyone we’ve met has at some point in their life looked up and, even if for the briefest moment, wondered at a variation of the questions: “What does it all mean?” or “Why all this?” Our search for meaning is arguably both the most interesting and the most confusing shit we’ve all ever partook in. Depending on what one settles for, it could last from the day they feel a tad cheated out of the faint answers they were given to similar unquestionable questions, to the liberation of lying on their deathbed.
In our quest towards balancing the search for meaning while sympathizing with how we relate to each other and other life forms on this planet and at a time when the human race is only maturing — venturing into the stars and peering into the same minds peeking through those telescopes to learn more about this ancestral carbon structure of such fluid complexity — we are learning the hard way how diversely our species are capable of prioritizing options that could directly affect us and our future as the civilized species we pride ourselves to be. Every decision evicts a lifestyle choice and, in many cases, creates a moral dilemma about what it means to be human.
As the world gets more connected, the butterfly effect becomes more visible. With a click of a button, you can affect the fate of entire communities halfway across the world. And yes, choosing not to sign a petition after reading about it is itself a choice. Adulthood is chaotic.
The internet has made it easier to find niche communities we can relate to, wherever they might be from India to villages in the South of France. While this is good and likely to expose us to seeing the world differently than we would have, algorithms have made it such that we’re almost always reaffirmed that what we do is right and everyone is an asshole for not seeing it our way.
A militant vegan will look at you eating chicken wings and get baffled at how comfortable you are gnawing at an animal perfectly capable of being hurt. They’ll imagine if you ever think about the hellish living conditions of those animals and what the meat production and processing industries are putting those innocent animals through: species just like you and I and deserving of the normal life they’re clearly and mercilessly robbed of. They’ll see through the hypocrisy of your choice and wonder how you’d feel about eating your beloved pet!
There is usually more to the story. Meat-eaters will try to point out how humans need protein and how their ancestors were hunters. They’ll invite vegans to contemplate the consequences of what will happen to farm animals and farmers (their caretakers) if everyone were to go vegan and…yadda yadda yadda. It is an endless argument of rich points, constructive at times and selfish at another. In the end, none is better than when they began. The vegan detests other people's ways, and others cringe at guilt-based manipulations of imposing lifestyles.
Of course, this might be an intense take on how it pans out. Several vegans have made the choice not to eat, wear, or use animal products and don’t appear to give a rat’s ass what everyone else is doing.
But for every vegan who rolls her eyes at the inhumane practices of her species, countless others are battling in their ways: Environmental activists weeping in their hearts at the sight of others littering; human rights activists angrily creating hashtags for the next trendy injustice taking place somewhere in the world; privacy activists working to mobilize and save us from the tight grip of tech giants; feminists fighting against patriarchy with broken hearts for every time a woman is mansplained; religion zealots ready to commit all kinds of atrocities in the name of their gods; anti-abortionist yelling something that has to do with fetus; and of course, nihilists thinking it all doesn’t matter anyway… There are more worldviews and stances that hold the very fabric of sanity for many people around the globe than this page can hold.
In their own way, each of the above people is right. What they strive to do in their roughly three-thousand weeks of existence in bettering what it means to be human is clearly so paramount to them that many are willing to go an unfathomable distance to show how significant their fight is compared to everyone else's. It is frustrating how people just don’t get it, right?
My paternal grandmother was the happiest when she listened to DW very early in the morning or late at night. She’d position the radio receiver at some weird angle to get optimal reception; thousands of miles away, some newscaster whispering in her ears about the happenings around the world. In some way, I bet Mami was just as fascinated by it all as I am today by the happenings in the farthest corners of the internet. Happiness is subjective.
To the peasant farmer in the paddies of the remote counties in China, a happy day consists of maybe sharing a meal with friends and watching the stars illuminate the night. In contrast, to a financial executive in a high-rise building in the center of New York, a happy day might involve wobbly lines on some graphs and a big bonus check. This is not to degrade the latter as shallow, but to illustrate that for non-industrial, non-technological societies, standards differ.
Meaning is the same way. Viktor Frankl would tell us that even suffering can end when it finds meaning. My grandma didn’t care (or even know) that the earth is a fancy rock hurtling into the void. She would be blown away if she lived long enough for me to explain to her how radio signals work and just what it takes for her to listen to the news in the morning. She didn’t give a damn about the complexity of consciousness or the absurdity of our collective trust in the notes we call money. Frankly, my grandma cared more about whether the tabarmar kaba (a local mat of some sort) she knitted was good enough than she does about global warming. Nevertheless, she lived a meaningful life.
It is easy to accuse others of not caring about everyone and everything else but themselves, until we carefully look inward and see how we’ve been doing just that our whole lives. Meaning is a jumper that you have to knit yourself, the saying goes. Instead of knitting a jumper, many people end up building a metaphorical safe house where they hide within and block the outside world and then later come out only to berate others for not caring about the same. That is no way to live, friend.
"Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God."
Benjamin Spock, paediatrician and author (2 May 1903-1998)
A deep connection to other human beings and other species and the whole of nature is what I hold up as the pinnacle of being human.
Nothing is black or white and everything is greyer than we care to admit. I don’t care how you spin it; it’s impossible to truly live on this planet without being aware of how our actions are affecting the rest of it. I don’t care how complicated and confusing it sounds; the only way we can have a meaningful life is to connect to others and to the planet. That’s it. And if someone doesn’t do that in the same way as we do, it doesn’t make them any less human.
In our world, the impetus for caring has been somehow muted in the name of convenience and 'getting by.' From time to time, this brings us into conflict. But the benefit of living in a world with competing narratives is that it's a world of active debate. It forces us to formulate the question of meaning and pose ourselves the question of how we can live better together. Even if everyone can't care about everything all of the time (because I'd really really really like to meet someone who has the energy to do so), and even if all the ideas on how to be a better person are mutually exclusive, we all have a choice in how we relate to each other, to each other's stories, and to each other's experiences.