on the rage

Being human

The rage of “being human” is a theme often over-explored within this new age of media and self-awareness. The rage of recognizing our flaws against an endlessly innovative world. The price that everyday people pay at the expense of fantasies. Of artificial intelligence, of thought experiments, of mindless ambition brought to fruition.

What various supporters of this rage – including filmmaker Damien Chazelle, who claimed the rage of “not being super human” is perhaps even more prominent – forget to understand is that there is an innate empathy or sacrifice involved unrecognized

The fantasies we consume – of minds that transcend limitations, of ambition without consequence – forget to mention what happens to the human part. That part that needs sleep and connection and the permission to be mediocre on a Tuesday. The part that recognizes itself in old photographs and wonders when it agreed to trade presence for productivity, intimacy for achievement, the messy business of being loved for the clean narrative of being accomplished.

The question at the bottom of our entertainment, our politics, our relationships is simple: how much are you willing to give up? How much are you willing to risk in exchange for an idea? For a promise?

If the answer is nothing, perhaps there is a never-ending, all-consuming guilt that something was the right answer. That your refusal to sacrifice meant refusing to become. That something simply meant now and now while nothing meant forever in another lifetime.

For as Plato said, the only just man in this world would be killed before he was valued.