What’s our (real) role in life?
Our role in life (real or otherwise) could be illustrated by our behavior – by our attitude toward ourselves and others – and by what we do with our time, resources and what we give our attention to.
There is an explosion of voices and narratives aggressively courting us concerning many different mindsets, agendas, and culture subgroups – sadly, most of these directions are purposely divisive and condemning of the opposite voice – so called, good verses evil – left verses right – Christian verses non-Christian – one social/news media verses another – conservative verses moderate verses progressive verses liberal, and so on, and so on…. its maddening to say the least.
Somehow, we’ve been led to believe that we must pick sides – then condemn and denounce the opposite side – furthermore, we can earn accolades (clicks-likes-followers) the more visceral and harmful we become toward the ‘enemy’ (the opposite narrative) – this quickly becomes an escalating, rinse and repeat agitating exercise that perpetuates more harm, divisiveness, and condemnation of each other.
It’s like we’ve evolved into a real life amped up horrific version of the 1961 Dr Seuss children’s book, “The Sneetches” – compartmentalizing ourselves deeper and deeper into dividedness – while Sylvester McMonkey McBean (there are so many real life versions of this guy on both sides) spins the narratives more and more into aggressive agitated states of ‘us verses them’ – and like the Sneetches, we let one side of our human nature, fear, and falsely defined acceptable levels of tolerance rule us into the chaos we find ourselves in today.
Also like the Sneetches, we know better – deep down, we know this is a bad direction for ourself and our nation – we know our human nature has two (or more) sides – we know we can do and be better – we see in the book, the Sneetches eventually learned that Sneetches are Sneetches – why is it so hard for us to learn that humans are humans?
I believe in the silence of our personal space, in the safety of our carved-out existence… we know we are meant for more than roles that produce divisive and condemning behavior – we know this if we’re being honest with ourselves.
Here’s a clue – if we find ourselves subcategorizing people or people groups by politics, religion, media, race, income, nationality, geographic location, etc., etc… which eventually leads us to losing sight of their humanity for the sake of one of these negative agendas – then we can rest assured, that we’ve compromised our (real) role in this life.
There are so many things we can do with our time, resources, and attention – perhaps our (real) role is to apply our time, resources, and attention to…
…anything that does not oppress or condemn others.
…improving our lives, and the lives of others.
…encouraging others to be less negative.
…caring for oneself, and others.
…maybe, don’t be a jerk.
…or be kind.
We all have a moral compass – we all have a driving force that should guide us away from negative behavior – for some it’s basic morality, spirituality, humanitarian, or a sense of a greater good – for me, it’s my Christian faith – truth be told, it’s not easy to leverage our moral compass flavored nature in the face of our demanding selfish and fearful nature – but we have to find the strength, because that is truly our REAL role in this life.
At the end of the day, regardless of politics, religion, media, race, income, nationality, appearances, economics, geographic location, etc… we must see humans as humans – because humans really are humans, regardless of the false narratives pulling at us daily.
God will sort out any subcultures relevant to Him or His will – it’s His role to judge, not ours – our role is to make good use of our time, resources, and things we give our attention to.
Sneetches are Sneetches, and humans are humans.
Kevin's Thoughts 