Most humans are afraid of dying. I myself don’t want to die… if you offered me a way to become immortal, I would take it. I enjoy life and would like to extend mine as long as I can.
That is the wrong attitude though. We humans only have a 0.1% difference in genetics between even people from different continents. Your own children or parents share far more than that in common with you. This leads me to believe that our selfhood is partially an illusion… others around you basically are you… just different chunks of you with slightly different experiences. We share far, far more in common than we have differences.
When people behave selfishly, you could look at it like many religions do as they are just hurting themselves.
We need to embrace the fact that we are born, we grow during youth, mature into adulthood, then slowly fade with age until we die. Each stage of life is beautiful and interesting in it’s own way. Don’t cling desperately to youth. Don’t fear death.
And most importantly, we need a LOT more mixing of different age groups. The artificial isolation of ages that has developed with the industrial age is very bad for humans of all ages.
*Your blog post gives an interesting perspective on humans beings and the similarities between us all, and I felt inclined to comment.*
(Note- I actually came across your blog because I just applied for an Administrative Assistant position, at Coalition Technologies.)
I really liked this post though….
I’ve always felt ‘connected’ to humanity, as a whole. Once, while living in Guatemala, I was promoting a fundraiser to help indigenous Mayan children attend school… because their village only had educational resources up to the fifth grade— And while advocating, I was actually scolded by someone in the States, who said- “You’re not even a Guatemalan… You’re an American, so why are you even getting involved?” This surprised me. It seemed like such dichotomous thinking on their part. “Guatemalan vs. American?” I answered back, “No, I am not Guatemalan; I am human… and I have a heart and a mind- just like you do and just like they do…”
It has always seemed so evident to me that we are all the same. Maybe if we could really embrace that we are ONE; death wouldn’t feel so profound or scary. Our minds could find it easier to relate death to ‘never actually happening’ if we see ourselves as ”one’ with humanity. We keep on living, per se… through all those that go on after us…
Humans, who continue loving, laughing, working- and finding life so miraculous, that they also fear it ending.
-Sunny