Remembering our shared humanity

Humanity - the shared experience of being a human being. At this time, we are all sharing the same time and space, living in this world together. Yet our world is experiencing a troubling lack of seeing each other as humans.

 

It is no secret that each one of us will experience life differently. Even siblings growing up in the same household will see their parents differently and can have vastly different childhood experiences. What will always remain as the common thread is that we are humans. We have hearts that beat, a desire to love and be loved, the need to have a purpose, and at the very least, need the basics to survive in life.

 

So where in society did we forget to see each other as humans? When can we acknowledge that at the ground level, we all need the same things?

 

I believe several things have happened, often simultaneously, that have led us to this place. We've abstracted each other into categories. People have become labels - political affiliations, demographics, income brackets, "those people" versus "us." Once someone becomes a category rather than a person with a beating heart, it's easier to dismiss their needs, their pain, their dreams. We forget that the person we disagree with also lies awake at night worrying about their kids, also feels joy watching a sunset, also needs to feel valued.

Technology has created connection without proximity. We can communicate with thousands without ever looking into someone's eyes, without seeing their hands tremble when they're vulnerable, without that visceral reminder that this is a living, breathing person. It's easier to be cruel, dismissive, or indifferent to a screen name than to a human face.

 

Our systems reward division. Media, politics, even algorithms profit from outrage and polarization. There's no incentive structure for reminding us of our commonality. "We're all struggling and deserve compassion" doesn't drive clicks or votes the way "they're the problem" does.

 

Scarcity mentality has taken over. When people feel like there isn't enough - enough opportunity, enough security, enough recognition - they start viewing others' gain as their loss.

Your thriving becomes a threat to mine, rather than something we could celebrate together or work toward collectively.

 

But here's what I know from my work in our community: the path back to seeing each other's humanity isn't a grand societal shift waiting to happen somewhere else. It's millions of individual choices happening right here, right now - in city council meetings, across salon chairs, at farmers markets, in how we talk about the people we disagree with.

 

It's choosing to remember that everyone is trying to make it through this life with some measure of dignity and purpose. It's treating economic development not as a zero-sum game but as creating rising tides that lift all boats. It's organizing events that bring people together rather than divide them. It's setting boundaries with compassion rather than contempt. We don't need to wait for permission to acknowledge our shared humanity. We can choose to act from that recognition ourselves, today, in our own communities. We can choose to see the human being in front of us - with their beating heart, their need to love and be loved, their desire for purpose, their basic needs for survival and dignity.

 

That choice, multiplied across countless daily interactions, might just be how we find our way back to each other.