MANIFEST EXAMPLE

October 9th, 2018

Imagine for a moment that you’ve been abducted by aliens.  Silly, fantastical, but just for a moment, imagine it.  You’ve been beamed aboard the mothership and find yourself within a small chamber and after some time it’s clear that you are not harmed and there is no intention to harm you.

Say these aliens have decoded your language, and they simply want to talk to you.

Let’s say they ask the simple question: What is your world like?

Take a moment to imagine what you would say.

What kind of portrait would you paint of the human race?

Is it all gloom and doom?  Would you say that you come from a people that is hell bent on destruction, that ruins it’s environment and cares little for the needy, sick and poor?  A species that only thinks of it’s individual self, and never sees the larger picture?

How would your listeners think of you if this was your answer?  Would your panel of observers think they’d stumbled onto the only clear headed member of the species?

Or is such a description not just a perspective of what’s going on with our planet, but also a glimpse into the perspective of the person who chooses to portray things in this way?

To criticize the rest of the human race as selfish and uncaring is in itself a selfish and uncaring act.  Not only does it ignore the rapid progress we have made with regards to improving our general condition, but it is selfish in that the speaker plays the victim card.  Such an individual speaks from a place of false innocence.  Such a speaker is a part of the poor picture they paint, though they might think they are separate, above, and better.

Or would you say something different.  Would you perhaps say that despite our misteps, mistakes and troubles, we get back up, again and again and try to see our old and present mistakes in ever clearer light, though it is difficult for us, and then once we’ve realized our mistake fully, we try, however feebly to fix what we have done.

Could it be that a fair and comprehensive picture of our chaotic world and the people we’ve become is simply not possible.  Might some of us claim an inability to accurately fulfill such an impossible task as describing who we are and what we strive to do.  How would such humility play upon our observers. 

No matter what we might say, we must remember that we as a speaker and a doer are not separate from our manner of communication nor our style of action, and both say a tremendous amount about who we are as individuals, and by proxy, what it means to be human, even if we as individuals only comprise a tiny tiny minority of our whole people.

We cannot simply describe.  We are, even in the role of reporter, an example of our own species.  And we need not be abducted by curious aliens to be thrust into such a role.  We live it every single day.  With every single thing we say, do and think, we are an example of what it means to be human.

What kind of example are you?