humanity
For better or for worse, relationships reveal the core of the human condition.
Poplar Fellers
It took 50 years to grow and eight hours on Labor Day Weekend to come down. It was the “tree monkey” that first caught my attention bringing down the 80 ft. poplar tree with the skill of a surgeon. This is what the landscaping crew affectionately called the 40-something Ontario Hydro skilled tradesman. ‘Electrical Forester,’ by title.
By Rick Beneteau7 years ago in Humans
Adulting 101
I get the distinct feeling that everyone else is absolutely smashing being an adult, just instinctively ‘getting it’. Whether it’s friends getting married, buying property or bringing new, miniature humans into the world, I’m often left wondering when we all got so grown up?
By Choice Words by Chantelle7 years ago in Humans
Fear and Fragility
“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” —Yoda Fear, the cancer of the 21st century. Fear has caused more death and suffering than anything in our entire history. Fear has caused wars to erupt, nations to fall, and has birthed atrocities into existence.
By John Ames Birch7 years ago in Humans
Old Soul
I never notice the obvious right away, the way that most people do. I have always felt different, but when I was a kid, I could never find a word for it. I've felt different since the second grade. I knew it wasn't because I was brown skinned. That wasn't it. There were plenty of kids in my class at Juarez Elementary School with brown skin and black hair. There was something else that I was aware of that made me different. I just didn't have a word for it.
By Maria Ayala7 years ago in Humans
The Unbelievable Reality of Racial Ambiguity
May 19, 2018—On this historic day, tradition within the British royal family's monarchy was flipped on its head when American actress Meghan Markle got married to the Duke of Sussex prince Harry. Prior to the marriage, many people were already on board with the idea of Harry, being fully Caucasian, breaking the tradition of marrying in your race by eloping to a mixed-raced woman outside of the UK, and as you can imagine, it was shocking.
By Jayla McKiver7 years ago in Humans
All the While
Dawn came pearly grey, the birds quieter than usual as they too woke to a damp fog hanging low over the grass. It was still cool outside in the wake of the night storm. The grass appeared almost silver with dew as the sun broke the eastern horizon and crept through the open window of Sebastian and Damen’s bedroom.
By esther joy7 years ago in Humans
Maintaining Social Energy
Social energy is something that's sort of hard to explain but I'm sure many of you have already felt it. I can't really say that it's peer pressure because there are more elements to it than that. There is good and bad social energy. The energy that I want to explore is the one that keeps us motivated to do do things.
By Brian Anonymous7 years ago in Humans
Toxicity Isn’t Cute
There are more than a few kinds of crimes that people will commit against each other. It is beyond easy to see the fault in a person who physically harms another person, but what about the people who go out of their way to mentally and emotionally harm another person? Remember, the saying sticks and stones will break may break your bones, but names will never hurt you? Sadly, whoever was told that, or for that matter whoever concocted that phrase so often used throughout society today was wrong and misguided. Words in any language can be used to hurt person. Which have the potential to lead to a lifetime of a person being mistreated, stigmatized, judged, etc. Why because someone thought they’re just “words”.
By Taryn Thomas7 years ago in Humans
The Taste of BS
Belief systems are in essence BS (bullshit). They present illusions about needs for safety. Safety from emotions like heartache, loneliness, worthless, insecurity, abandon, and many others. This BS masks irrational fears of feeling these emotions. The process begins when we judge the rich feeling of emotions as negative or positive. Once we are in a space of non-acceptance an illusion appears as an opportunity to help move from this 'negative' emotion. However, this desire to suppress this emotion can separate us from living a quality life. After some struggle, our desire to ignore—as opposed to diving in—begins to attract convincing stories about how we should avoid these emotions at all costs. The stories start to become supported through the media and inauthentic conversations. As they build over time, and as we subject ourselves to the delusion of how we feel better without feeling these powerful feelings, we begin to solidify our illusions and create needs. Needs that support our story. The interesting thing is, when we bury heartache, we can begin to feel loneliness, and when we bury loneliness we can start to experience worthless, and the game goes on and on until one feels completely abandoned. Because of this, one of our needs might be to have an external validation that one is worthy.
By Roger Metz7 years ago in Humans
