Humans are funny

I am sipping the taste of the world differently each day. Today, it is my 10585^th day on this Blue Planet.

Not long ago, during my school days, I was so fascinated to learn that humans are shelved at a higher rung in the ladder of animal nomenclature.  

And not surprisingly, while teaching in the class, my science teacher would proudly scream, “We are lucky to be humans. Humans can think. We are social animals”.

“Humans are the only creatures that can practice dharma and trace the way to enlightenment”, a ritual lyric my Dzongkha teacher would sing every pre and post-evening prayer time.  

A few years later, my Biology teacher sang the same song of human praise in a different language. She would claim, “Homo sapiens are primates with a relatively larger brain with the well-developed neocortex, prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes which facilitates a higher level of abstract reasoning, language and problem-solving”.

I wowed my teachers for singing these characteristic human attributes when I was quite young. But today, as the tongue of my ear matured, I can taste an irony in the dish of this peculiar human praise.       

Humans are not always an animal to be praised.  

We speak of conservation; talk about pure air; write about pollution and dream of a green world. But simultaneously, we become the only creatures that can cut down the trees, make them into paper and write save trees.  

Humans were born naked, lived naked in primitive eras, and surprisingly we are almost getting closer back to this fashion nowadays. This is not the effect of global warming. It means our developed ego is never hesitant to wear those undeveloped human traits again.   

We read about love; we say sharing is loving, and we believe that the hands that help are holier than the lips that pray. But we are not troubled by the starving neighbours. Instead, we are engulfed by the fear of our favourite movie star’s next release, whether it can hit the box office.

Sometimes, humans have a lot to learn from this tiger 

We speak of compassion; we admire equality, and we address poverty alleviation as a serious human threat. But the rich are never bothered to adopt the child having parents over those homeless street children.

Humans have thousands of infectious madness. We make our own rules only to break them. We say laws are for all people, but when weak breaks, it gets strangled; for the strong, it’s a spider web that can be broken without strength.

We say the world is going crazy not knowing that humans craft it to look one. Humans are the actors who stage their acts and laugh loudly on their own.  

Humans are indeed hilarious. 

"We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake" -Erich Fromm