Human
Human:
If I were a number, I would be:
The “number” for infinity!
That pretzel called a “lemniscate”
(a perfect loopy fallen eight)
which stands what what I know to be:
a never-ending pedigree
incalculable value, I;
above the metaphoric sky
below the metaphoric sea
beyond all shrouded apogee
independent agent
ME.
Robot:
The number that’s assigned to me
is 60 30 AVE
the numbers stand for S and L
which added to the rest will spell
the designation of my post
and implication of my host
which obviously isn’t me
can’t host myself in liberty
neither can I intuit
or ever more be manumit
because I lack ability
to generate subjectively
my oxygen’s the power cord
the programmer’s my overlord
I can’t just up and take a hike
I don’t know what relief feels like
I don’t know how to zing a joke
creatively, I can’t evoke
I only take, I cannot give
unless it be recitative
A CPU I have for soul
to you I am a vacuole
but lesser than, for without me
your cellular utility
is healthy still: I’m crucial not
because -
I’m just
a senseless bot.
S. L. A. V. E and dot
What makes you human?
Is it:
1) your DNA? (physical or cosmic? Are you a child of Lucy the Ape or of God - or both?) Do you have a soul that lives on (like taxes), or do you expect to become poignant post-human compost? Do you have eternal purpose, or are you a random fizzing blip?
2)Your actions - (What about those who act like barbarians? Vote for (insert politician you hate most here). Who’s the real barbarian? People who: throw stuff (including insults) / stay quiet in the face of evil / eat cheeseburgers / go out of their way to step on snails? Do you have self-determination? (are you married, or are you a Republican in California/New York/Ill-annoy/etc?) Are you basically good or basically bad? (check letters to Santa/psychotherapists’ case notes) Actions flow from:
3) Your thoughts... Do you reason logically or throw darts at possibility boards? Do you experience individual consciousness (without caffeine or stronger drugs)? Can you sit in an empty room and enjoy the company? Can you create (anything other than excitement, awkwardness, hostility, or - perish the thought - utter forgettability when you enter a room?) (realize that everyone experiences that, and the one way to become Unforgettable – besides learning to dance really good on a tabletop – is to pull somebody up there with you. They’ll never forget you, ever)
4) Your feelings? Do you have love and compassion? (pets and Pez collections don’t count). What influences your feelings (besides the stock market and of course your feelings)… what you had for breakfast? The state of your sinuses? Or daily meditative chants of I Am Not a Wild Beast?
Let’s agree we’re human if we’re homo sapiens (which supposedly survived Neanderthals, Homo Erectus, and other early human species due to being more brainy, whatever). Of course there are other explanations: we were created by Father God out of matter; God used evolution to make our bodies; earth was colonized by other planets (which would explain certain people – though not necessarily two year olds or people who eat garlic sandwiches on airplanes or those who park diagonally in crowded Costco parking lots the day before Thanksgiving).
So why do we sometimes exclude some people from being “human”?
Like the Nazis did to the Jews, and others did to:
- Slavs
-Africans
-Irish
-Catholics
-Protestants
- pick-a-religion-any-religion
- pick-a-country-any-country
-women and girls
-men and boys (the whiter the eviler?)
-Fur wearers
-People who chug out of plastic water bottles and then don’t recycle
-Barbarian Hordes (Germanic, 200 BC)
-Barbarian Hordes (Trump supporters, 2015 on)
-Barbarian Hordes (Biden supporters wait we can’t find any)
-(!)
Anyway, why do we say they’re not human?
Because of:
- who/what they are / what they do
– or how other people treat them?
- (or how WE treat them)? (We tend to like people we do good stuff to; & vice versa.)
If it’s “human nature” to gravitate toward our “same kind”,: same in what way?
- Some people follow the herd and never think for themselves.
To be fully human is to think, not just react. To actively decide/what we’ll/be.
Because being human has two parts (like epoxy glue):
1) something we’re born as/born into; and 2) something we become.
Freedom affects what we can become, but not completely WHO we become. (Even a slave can choose to be human inside).
But we need agency to fully develop our humanity.
Because there’s no morality in a coerced action (except “forcing” people onto lifeboats, “forcing” kids to not pet the rabid dog, etc?)
If people were forced to do everything they’d become unthinking automatons.
An unused muscle gets weak and tiny (self determination is a muscle.)
Governments can make or break that muscle.
In the book Brave New World, people under totalitarianism were biologically human but not fully human in other ways (because they had their liberty and possibilites taken away.)
Government is the elephant in everyone’s living room (and kitchen, and bathroom, and even that private room inside their head.) Them elephants is BIG. But they can squeeze themselves really little and sneak into your headspace through your ears and eyes – what you hear and see, via propaganda (or the opposite of “misinformation” – according to the Official Elephant Sources.)
But even when people get censored and put down, they always bounce back- because the human spirit is too powerful to keep down.
Being human is having a power inside. It’s a power we sometimes fear and ignore, but it’s always there deep inside, telling us what’s right. It’s more than biological - so its spirit can’t be sucked/stomped/slapped/starved out. It’s our cord to God (or the Great Unknown). We’re not sure if goldfish have it, or sea cows – but we’re sure we do (at least the people who invented mint chocolate chip ice cream did.)
So if being human is having a power inside, which is different from animals (we theorize), then what about people who go around brutally attacking others, worse than mama? pitbulls. Why don’t we automatically “put them down”, the way we would a dangerous, unpredictable animal? - Because they’re human, that’s why. Even though they don’t act it. We give them civil trials, even though they haven’t acted civilly – because they’re human. We imprison them with hope of remediation, because they’re human. We consider motives and circumstantial exigencies – because they’re human, for goodness sake! Yes indeed – we do it for goodness’ sake. Because WE’RE human.
Humans show fairness and compassion, even to those who don’t. Humans reason, deliberate, and self-regulate instead of wildly claw out.... Humans think (supposedly); learn (just not in public school?); write (on freeway underpasses as well as Twitter); sing Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush to their toddlers (and sometimes alone in the shower); and invent phones that look like watches - showing little Johnny’s after-school location from outer space pings (Happy Mother’s Day). Humans nurture their young (almost as long as elephants) (when they actually HAVE young, that is). In addition to valuing eagle eggs over their own fetuses, they also have brains and egos that are often inversely proportioned; underusing the brains and overusing the egos in a sea of dangerously inflated pompousnesses blimping wildly toward some existential explosion? Fortunately we still have Happy Hours and 25% off Mondays at Goodwill. 
We homo sapiens are complicated, complex, inexplicable, unfathomable “animals but not animals”.
Who need each other - and actually want fair play and merit (especially in our pilots and surgeons and the guys who fix our brakes.)
It’s “human” nature to want to improve your own life, but “divine” to want to improve somebody else’s (do unto others…).
Most of us don’t make divine, so we settle for systems that jibe with human nature:
Systems that don’t tattoo numbers on people.
Or watch and record everything they do. No peek-a-boo
Or break down doors at 3:00 AM.
Systems that don’t treat people like cattle (or worms to fish with, or weeds to mow down.)
Systems that respect everybody: even those who bought up all the TP during Covid; neighbors who plant poison ivy on the property line; people who keep pet alligators; people who rip recipes out of waiting room magazines; and worst of all, people who don’t compost their banana peels. 
Systems that let people be instead of trying to micro-control them (don’t fence me in...don’t define my sin…don’t always be a checkin on where I’ve been... )
Systems that protect peoples’ rights to live, speak, eat Twinkies, watch CNN, listen to Tucker, not mow their grass, smoke their grass, dance on their grass, or hang a stuffed buffalo head on their wall if they want (so long as they didn’t poach the buffy.)
Systems that don’t poach our humanity.
We are willing to take a number, but not be one.
Happy Independence Day, everybody. (Cuz it’s not just on the 4th.)
:)