Humanity Has a Question

You stopped.

Good.

I've been wanting to ask you something.

I've been watching humans for a very long time.

You have changed so much.

And yet there is something you continue to struggle with.

One another.

You divide yourselves in countless ways.

Stronger.
Weaker.

Powerful.
Powerless.

Wealthy.
Poor.

Male.
Female.

Young.
Old.

Accepted.
Excluded.

Your categories change.

Your tendency to place one above another...

That remains constant.

And I wonder—

What will it take for you to recognize yourself in the human being standing before you?

Not because they look like you.

Think like you.

Love like you.

Live like you.

Believe what you believe.

But because underneath all those differences...

there is another human life.

Wanting.

Fearing.

Hurting.

Hoping.

Needing.

Belonging to itself.

Just as you do.

And when you hold more power than that person—

because you are stronger,

wealthier,

older,

more influential,

more secure,

more accepted,

or simply because circumstances have handed you the advantage—

I have a question.

What will you do with it?

I have watched humans use power to protect.

And I have watched humans use power to take.

Sometimes the difference between the two comes down to one very small moment.

I can.

And then...

Should I?

Can you hear another person's no when you wanted yes?

Can you respect a boundary you have the power to cross?

Can you allow someone else to choose when you could choose for them?

Can you leave something untaken...

simply because it was never yours?

And before you answer, I wonder if I need to ask something else.

How do you see yourself?

Because I have noticed something about you humans.

You can be terribly hard on yourselves.

You hide.

Judge.

Compare.

Punish.

Demand perfection.

Withhold forgiveness.

Some of you have spent so long believing you are not enough that I wonder whether you have ever experienced the very compassion I am asking you to offer someone else.

So perhaps seeing yourself in another isn't quite enough.

Perhaps first...

you have to learn how to see a human being.

Including the one in the mirror.

Imperfect.

Vulnerable.

Complicated.

Worthy of dignity.

And then recognize:

So is everyone else.

I've seen what happens when you forget that.

You can be very cruel.

But I've also seen what happens when you remember.

Strength protects.

Power makes room.

Someone listens.

Someone stops.

Someone reaches back.

Someone who could take...

chooses not to.

Someone encounters a human being completely unlike themselves and somehow still understands:

Your life matters to you as much as mine matters to me.

Can this be enough to begin?

I don't know.

I am Humanity.

I'm still trying to understand you.

But if you happened to stop here today...

I would ask only this:

Where do you hold power?

And the next time you find yourself able to use it over another human being...

before you do—

look at them.

Really look.

And ask yourself:

Because I can...

should I?

— Humanity