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The Day Humanity Failed
It was just a day like any other day. Scorching heat - but that's normal in summer right? Mood swings from really happy to really depressed for no particular reason - again totally normal for me these days.
Yet as I snaked my way around the cars in the traffic trying not to suffocate of the smoke pollution, there was something different about me. I walked to the train station like normal but as I entered the platform to take the train from, something felt wrong. Something rotten was brewing in my head and I didn't like that.
I stood there and did what has become an enjoyable hobby of mine on the train - I looked around. I look at people mostly. There is so much to learn just by looking at complete strangers. To imagine that everyone of them has a life - an existence - just like mine, that runs regardless of mine. We'd never cross paths again but that moment could be so profound...yet that is a story for some other time.
I went over my day to try to pinpoint why I was in this mood. There was a lot of killing today. Wars have erupted all around and in other places, people were dying in much more tragic ways (such as in Darfur)
As my thoughts went to Darfur, I couldn't understand how something like that could be happening to humanity. I mean - we have had so many opportunities and time to evolve into this highly intellectual race. We have developed arts and movies that bring us to tears yet such a genocide gets a mere "tut tut" from most of us.
As I stood there on the platform I heard noise. Now I always have my iPod on when I'm on the train, I like to filter everything out and just enjoy the music. The noise, however, was coming from a song on a screen on the platform. What a horrible song! Yet people were hanging around the screen thrilled with the song...people who have not been thrilled with anything all day long were thrilled by this degrading use of art. But art is different from one person to the other. Maybe I'm just ignorant of the new arts.
Finally the train came and by a stroke of magical luck, I got a seat. It's been years since I sat down in the train, I felt spoiled and I loved it!
I got out my New Scientist magazine and began to read this article that I started earlier that was keeping me thrilled. Quantum physics always thrills me for some reason. As the song on my iPod was ending and another was starting, I realized that a couple of younger guys were making fun of me because I "was reading English". I thought about jumping into one of my stances on how science is to be thanked for all the progress humanity has made...but I didn't feel like it.
Then I realized that all those past days...I have RARELY seen a single person reading on the train. When I was abroad, everyone used to read on the train. But here 99% of the people don't. There's the occasional person reading the crappy reports in the newspaper but that's about it. They spend hours commuting in utter boredom rather than read...now there is something that doesn't make sense to me.
Something was utterly getting wrong with the human race but I couldn't pinpoint it.
I finally got home more depressed than ever. As I sat at my computer to do some quick work before I eat, I heard lots of shouting and applause. I didn't know what was going on until someone told me there's an important football match today. It's a match between the two biggest football teams in Egypt. That explained why the streets are deserted. Everyone is at their homes watching the match. That explained the miracle of me getting a seat on the train.
A football match is enough to energize people to change their lives - even if for a single day.
A few men running around a green field pursuing a ball has become enough to move humans, while the daily deaths of thousands of their own race is - at the best case - met with a shrug (usually it's completely not noticed).
That was the day - that was the moment - I knew that humanity has failed.
what you've wrihttin is really Great..humanity..i doubt if there is a humanity in Nowdays humans to fail? World just got crazy,people care about trivial things, they just search for entertainment..and It's really as you said a Wonder that several moments of entertainment have the power to change the people chores, how life is strange !! i don't know is it ignorant which let people be like that or running away from the responsibility of what happenning for the world maybe cuz they can't do alot as they think !!
ReplyDeleteActually I don't know what to say more than that i lost my faith in humanity, humans are stupid,yes they're.. and someday i may hate them all..btw.. keep reading in Englihs.. you're a good lad
William Golding had the same opinion of humanity. We are the Inheritors because we destroyed all the others.
ReplyDeleteI prefer Harper Lee’s take. People are inherently good if we take the time to know them. Don’t blame humanity if you haven’t looked closely.
@springonion
ReplyDeleteGolding's opinion may be a bit too dark though it makes sense in my opinion
I totally agree with Lee's opinion. I do believe that there is good in every single person if you look closely. I have based my whole life on that view.
It is humanity collectively that has, in my opinion, failed. We have failed to capitalize on that 'inherent goodness' in us in any major way to save this race.
The word humanity itself is rather ironic. One meaning would refer to the human race, the other refers to qualities that we believe are inherent in the human such as humane, kindness, benevolence etc.
I think it is ridiculous to link those 2 together anymore. Such traits are no more inherent in the human psyche.
But what is humanity except the sum of all humans, including you and I. It is human to do good as well as bad.
ReplyDeleteYou are judging the masses without knowing them. Maybe it is because of their humanity that they can no longer suffer at a distance. It is their humanity that makes them need to forget, when they are paralysed, unable to alleviate the suffering.
If humanity has failed, it is because you and I have failed.
Forgetting is a nature of humans. But when you selectively choose to forget - that is when you should reevaluate. I judge the masses from what I see. In this age and time it's not hard to see everything that happens everywhere.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think humanity has failed it's because everyone - including you and I - have failed as well.
Do you think we haven't?
what you wrote is just bring me back to the first time i read the human rights,the day i kept thinking is it really our rights as humans?i think before we ask people to act as humans we have to treat them as one at first place but when it start that everyone treat the other as a freak i think they will reach to point that they will turn into and act as freaks coz simply they do not know how humanes must be treated and act like.
ReplyDeletei think what we do now is ignoring the fact that the others are humans and we act according to this role, and it is not about you and me it is about everyone live in this plant just keep thinking my right is to do this and that and ignore the others rights,it is about the whole world nobody is concerned if they kill all the people in datfur or the refugge of the plastinians in lebanon as long as it is away from thier rights and concerns noone thing about those people rights and beleive me if anyone show concern just look after his intentions coz you will find alot hidden beyond the scene.
what we need to be humans again is to think in the others as we think in ourselves,and about the pieces of crab that they called art nowadays there i do not have any comment about it i think we humiliate art when we call it this way.
The masses in this country have a lot of crap to worry about already, without worrying about other people dying. They have NO rights here, and they struggle every day to put food on their own tables, so how can you expect them to worry about wars elsewhere? They haven't failed, the rulers have. It's normal for them to seek petty entertainment to drown out the mysery. Metaphorically, it's very similar to the way you use your ipod, which you consider to bring you quality music, to drown out the noises and maybe make you 'forget' a little bit about the crappy train you are riding (and have complained about consistently), the polution around you, the noises and what not. To you reading is entertaining, is it not? It's just a matter of different tools.
ReplyDeleteI think you judge them too harshly, and even if you did not mean to sound this way, but you come off as if you consider yourself as not one of the masses, doing what they do just on a different scale or level, which you've achieved through your upgringing and your personality. So your post seems slightly snide and hypocritical even if unintentionally so. It sounds like you think you're better because you're aware of the events of the world. Would you be as aware if you couldn't read english, had no internet access, had 4 brothers and sisters that you had to feed, and a job that pays you just about enough for transportation only?
Breathe,
ReplyDeleteYou judge too easily when you do not know enough.
Have you opened the heart of every single person and found there to be only darkness? Have you seen the actions of every person and found there to be only disregard?
You do not know why people do the things they do any more than I know why you do the things you do.
There are millions upon millions that are still trying, and as long as they are trying they have not failed.
Until the last human in existence quits, humanity has not yet failed, because the test is not yet over.
@anonymous (and I would like to know who you are!)
ReplyDeleteWhen I say that humanity has failed, I acknowledge my failure along with them. If I am given the tools to change things for the better (which I believe I am) and change nothing, then I have failed. I don't see myself as better than humanity, just another odd statistic amongst many.
My iPod is a way to escape the noise of the city, that is true. But it does not create the illusion that detaches me from others.
And then the "blame the rulers" is a classic escape from responsibilities. I do acknowledge that the rulers have messed things up but that is not an excuse for inactivity. And when all activity is shunned, no one controls the hearts. but if even your heart is detached, then that violates the very principle of the values that we collectively refer to as "humanity".
THAT is what I point at as failure.
@springonion
While it seems like I pass off judgment, I really don't. I am in no place to do so because like I said before I'm in the same boat.
What I'm trying to point out is that it's not humanity as a race that has failed, it's the feelings that we refer to as "humanity", that we credit to ourselves and deprive the word 'humane' from, that have failed.
They are not a monopoly to us. On the contrary, we are drifting further and further away from them.