We are human, we are flawed.
Often though we shelter ourselves from the reality. We choose not to see our flaws, whatever they may be. That we are too quick to become irritated. That we shy away from speaking to people we do not already know. That we are nervous or anxious. That, that, that…
No matter the flaw it is not something to be ashamed of or hidden. It is part of us. It is an opportunity to become better, to improve.
We are human, we can grow. Become the best you can be.
Overnight there was another shooting in the States.
Pop, pop, pop. Three dead.
Each of us is just a bag of meat. Miraculously alive on a ball of dirt hurtling through the darkness around a massive billions of years long explosion. Bags of meat alive because of a little bit of electrical current running around our heads. We live because of many things but the electrical current is why we know it. And yet we kill each other.
Pop, pop, pop. Three dead.
We are all bags of meat. We are all bags of miracles.
Our lives are so completely without importance. Our lives are so completely important.
Pop, pop, pop. Three dead.
We kill each other so easily. We are not worthy of the miracle we are. We must strive to be better. We must become better. Our best selves await us.
Our best selves would not be content to sit back and allow others to be ended so easily. Our rights should not be the reason another has the ability to senselessly end a life.
Pop.
Our comfort should not be the reason. Our fear should not be the reason.
Our best selves know that we can do better. If we do not act it is because we have not been our best selves. If we do not act it is because we are hiding from the truth. The truth we know – we can stop this. We can prevent this. We can live side by side.
We allow the electrical current to be disrupted. We allow the bag of meat to be torn, slashed, broken, burned. We spill it onto the streets. We spill it and we say that we have done good. But we have not. Our best selves know this. Our best selves live inside us, fearing for us, cowering from us. If we allow the deaths of others then we willingly allow our best selves to be shackled and tortured.
We are miracles. We should live our lives knowing it. Living in peace as we ride this ball of dirt around the sun.
Pop, pop, pop. Three dead.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
We collect and congregate in groups of the similar. There are borders between us. So many borders. And we can’t even see. Borders we build without realising we’re building. Borders not just of place, though they exist too. We build borders of colour. Borders of religion. Borders of other.
Aspects of our identity mark us and keep us separate from other. Corralling those marked the same together. Fencing off those marked different. Race, religion, gender, politics. And on and on to the lesser markers such as accents, the logos you wear, the side of the street you live on.
We clump together like beads of rainwater streaming down a window pane, pooling on the ground. Drowning in sameness. Accepting no challenge to our identity. Clinging to it tightly, fearing it could be ripped from us.
We repel otherness like water repels oil. Sometimes specs of oil gather on the surface and we see the water polluted, unclean. We see others gathering in our bubble of sameness and look on them the same. But we must remember that we are neither oil nor water. Oil and water can not mix. We can. Oil and water rush away from each other through compulsion. The only compulsion that pushes us away from each other is ourselves. Us. Our identity. Words we have gathered to say to the world this is me. This is who I am. What I am. We use these words to separate.
Oil and water can not mix but we can. People of differing identities can come together to create new people. Our identities are arbitrary words assigned or chosen. They do not prevent black and white from coming together to create new life. They do not prevent Christian and Muslim from joining. We are human. All of us. Regardless of the words we use to identify us as individuals. We are all human. The words do not matter.
We need not be fenced in. We can become explorers of a larger world. We can be more. We must simply accept that we are all one. One great whole with parts that are the same but different.
None of us work in isolation. Each of us builds on the work of those that came before. The work we complete will be built on by those that follow.
We are a chain. Each link important to the strength of the whole.
On the day, in the moment, it may seem like we stand alone, unsupported. We don’t. There may be no one with us but we are not alone. We have the support of the fullness of history. The tools we use are there because the past has provided them. The knowledge we have is there because the past discovered it.
No piece of work is less important than another. Today’s work may not have the scale of yesterday’s but without it tomorrow’s work could not happen. Without it tomorrow’s work could only build on the work of yesterday. Without it tomorrow’s work would be a step behind. Or perhaps today’s work is at the largest scale. But don’t forget that without yesterday, today would not be possible.
We are a chain, with each of us a link. Don’t break the chain.
Friday was the 40th anniversary of Apple’s founding. A milestone. A time for reflection on the road that led to now. An opportunity to look at the possibilities of the future.
The news report I watched did look at the achievements of the past. But there was also something else. A look at the future, yes, but a particular sort of look to the future that dismisses what has already been achieved. The sort of thing that’s done with a shake of the head and a sigh that implies the person is saying, “Yeah, that’s all well and good but can you do it again?”
What the report actually said was that Apple must now prove it can keep innovating in order to continue growing for the next 40 years. It’s not that the question is invalid or can’t be asked. It’s the context of the question. Throwing it in at the end of the report, as a throw away statement, implies that Apple are screwed. It’s the same as congratulating a married couple on their first wedding anniversary and implying, without evidence, that they’ll be divorced by their second anniversary. “Congratulations to them, but will they be married this time next year?”
To me that’s a real indictment of our way of thinking as a society. We no longer take a moment to enjoy what’s been achieved. Instead we look back and say “Great, but it’s not really good enough is it? What you’ve done in the past doesn’t matter. It’s only what you do next that matters”. Except when it comes to that next thing it’s not good enough either. So that in the end nothing is ever good enough. It’s the kind of outlook that denies us satisfaction with our lives and achievements. As a society or as individuals.
That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look to the future, or that we can’t set goals. Not at all. It simply means that as individuals we need to learn to take the time to enjoy a milestone before moving onto planning for the next one. Hopefully society will follow.
This morning I came across this tweet:
April Fools Day is the one day of the year that people critically evaluate news articles before accepting them as true.
— Nicholas de Wolff (@usdew) March 31, 2016
April 1st is a day on which we expect to get fooled. With that awareness comes an alertness we normally don’t bother switching on. But we should.
We should not accept every bit of information we receive without question. Not all news is neutral and unbiased. Not all news sources are neutral and unbiased.
Switch on.
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, the first woman in space. Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Countess Markievicz, a revolutionary in the Irish Easter Rising of 1916. Rosa Parks, an American civil rights activist. Wangari Maathai, Kenyan born environmentalist, pro-democracy activist and women’s rights campaigner. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books. Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani schoolgirl who defied the Taliban to campaign for the right to education. These are just a few of the extraordinary women we count as heroes.
There are female heroes closer to us than perhaps we realise. They are our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our friends, our girlfriends, our wives. Perhaps we are too close to see clearly. Take a step back. Give yourself the space to see. A hero is someone we admire for their outstanding achievements, noble qualities, or courage.
I count my wife, Christina, as one of my heroes. Her achievements are inspiring. She launched Brosnan Photographic almost ten years ago. Last year she published her wedding advice book ‘Ever Yours’. She continues to strive for new achievements, recently launching Lux Curated and starting a YouTube channel. Hardworking, dedicated, creative, kind, and unfailingly helpful to others are just some of her noble qualities. She shows courage often, particularly when she puts herself in situations outside her comfort zone, such as launching Lux Curated.
All that I have mentioned is just one aspect of my wife. They relate to the her work side. I have not even touched on her qualities as a wife and friend. How could I not be inspired by her?
Today, on International Women’s Day, look again at the women in your life. Recognise them for the heroes they are.
I’ve said before that we are all cyborgs. Our evolution from Homo sapiens to Homo machina is already underway.
One way this evolution could develop is that people start to get brain chips. Brain chips would help make people better and smarter.
You’re in an interview and you get asked a question. Your brain chip instantly connects to the web and searches for the best way to answer the question. Initially, there might be some lag in getting the info but over time this would become less and less noticeable.
You could argue that this is already happening. We rely on our own memory less as we can Google it. We don’t need to know how to do things anymore. We just need to know how we can find out how to do something. Don’t know the appropriate HTML code to use in your project? There’s no need to work it out. Just look it up!
This is of course nothing new. People have always been outsourcing their brain function. We’ve used books and libraries to store information so we don’t have to forget it.
Outsourcing brain function is not confined to technology. We also outsource to other people. You see this most evidently with couples. Over time one in the partnership takes on certain roles. It might be that one always looks after the passports on holidays. It might be that the one always looks after the finances.
Society is simply an expansion of this. None of us need to know how to do everything. We can rely on others to know how to do things we don’t. They rely on us for other things. We humans outsource so many things so that we don’t have to take up brain space with them. It allows us as a species to do so many more things than any individual.
Outsourcing to Google is a natural extension.
I’m a cyborg. You’re a cyborg. We are all become cyborgs.
It’s our mobiles. We can’t do without them. Lose your phone or break it and you’ll feel like you’re missing an arm. We rely on our phones as extra limbs. Our phones augment our abilities and make us more capable than a normal human. Instead of needing to recall every piece of information we can outsource our memory to Google and others. Without effort we can search for information we never had.
To be a cyborg in the strictest sense the technology would need to be embedded in our bodies. We are not yet at that stage but for many our phones may as well be surgically attached.
This is the first step to humankind’s evolution to cyborg. The next is wearable technology. Then we will implant the technology we already use.
Our transformation from Homo sapiens to Homo machina is well underway.