The Weight of Being Human

It was a much cooler morning than what was normal for the summertime in the Lone Star State. I knew it wouldn’t last long. Heat in Texas was like mosquitoes to a porch light. It was always hot here, even when it was “cool.”

The morning air was good at attracting a lot of peculiar bugs. The vibrant hues of the flowers looked so inviting, I can’t say that I really blamed them. One bug in particular caught my eye. A carpenter bee to be exact. Not that bees are all that strange of bugs, but this one looked so enthusiastic as it jumped from plant to plant. His tiny body buzzed about. I watched as it crawled along the ruby red petals of the Turk’s Cap, using its abdomen to scoot itself further along as the petals became softer. When it found what it was looking for, it flew off, taking a bit of my curiosity with him but leaving me lost in thought about the bee’s purpose. Even on its own, it wasn’t lonely. It had a job. One job. Other bees relied on him to serve and protect its hive no matter the cost to itself. There was comfort in the simplicity of it all. And yet it got me thinking about the complexity of human beings.

Made to Connect

It is no secret that human beings rely heavily on connection for survival. It’s reflected in everything that we do. We build civilizations from it that cultivate languages and culture that connect us even more. Art, in all its forms, captures our need to be seen by others. To be connected to others.

Much like the bee… we need each other.

We can speculate the reason behind why we are so complex. We can say that it is our human consciousness that got in the way. Or our desire to be individualistic. Either way, we are all on this planet. Put into different situations, under different conditions, raised in different cultures that shaped us into the people we are today. And because of these differences, we’ve seen knowledge and empathy grow. But the other side of that coin is the human ego. The side where some see the world as a place not to share but a place that is theirs and theirs alone.

The Heaviness of Expectation

Please don’t take this as me saying we need to be as simplistic as a bee. I think there is beauty to the complexity of being human. And without getting on my soap box and preaching, I think there is a lot of purpose to us being here. Just as much purpose as the bee does, at least. But we’ve built societies around our ability to connect with each other. Those societies shape the ways laws are made. The way social interactions take place and what we find acceptable. But for the sake of today’s blog post, I am going to focus specifically on societal norms and how it affects us as a whole.

As a mother of a son and a daughter in the South (United States), I am no stranger to societal norms and expectations, especially tied to religion. And to be clear, I am not criticizing religion. But I do want to highlight how it can shape social structures in a powerful way and this was definitely the case for me. It shaped the way I was raised and the decisions I made into my early adulthood.

From a young age, I was taught that my only purpose was to be a mother and a wife. For a long time, that sounded like the most ideal thing to possibly have happened. I was taught the place of the woman was the home. Her sanctuary was the kitchen. And if you ask my therapist, I was parentified.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love being a mother and a wife. But I was never allowed the space to figure out the joys of life. I felt forced to meet expectations that were never really mine to begin with. And that took its toll.

The Cost of Performance

We can see the long-term cost of our societal performances. History has always been a good indicator of that. Yet we never leave room for grace.

The first thing that comes to mind is cancel culture. We have created a whole space to just shame but never to actually take the time to educate and heal. The way we actively choose to speak the way that we do to each other online, hiding behind a keyboard. Never taking into consideration the person on the other side.

But we forget loneliness doesn’t know a stranger.

We are all hurting or have gone through something. It is so easy to forget that with social media. It has a way of making you believe that everyone is thriving. We get so caught up in what everyone else is doing, we forget to pay attention to ourselves. To take accountability and ownership for what we are doing. We all have low moments and we all feel disconnected at times. During those times, we can choose to project that onto people or heal from it and realize that we are all (regardless of gender) human. With human feelings.

Loneliness has been around forever. We created a whole word for it, but still we rarely choose to talk about it. Instead, we tell men to suppress their feelings. But seeing my son with his heart on his sleeve… that feels like theft. On the flip side, women are told to feel in ways that are acceptable. Quiet. But my daughter’s fire told me otherwise.

We’ve done ourselves a disservice. We’ve reduced our connection down to greed and sex. When it should have always been about doing something simply out of the love for that person. To love without keeping tabs or needing anything in return, and to understand that intimacy is a dynamic form of connection.

Coming Up

In the next couple of posts on the topic of modern-day loneliness, I will be exploring the concepts of the Male Loneliness Epidemic and Female Loneliness. Heavy topics, but ones that should definitely be spoken about… especially seeing an uptick in loneliness statistics.

There isn’t much research on loneliness before the 1970s. So it is possible that we only just began speaking on this. But the way our society works now (especially in America), it’s very consumeristic. And it’s led by the people with the most money. We’ve stopped doing things for each other and leaned too hard into being individualistic. You can see it reflected in public spaces: fewer parks, less maintenance, fewer spaces where people just go to be around each other. The ones that remain are mostly churches, shops, or the internet.

Honestly, the biggest reason I made any friends this year was because of my kids and my desire for them to socialize.

In the end, when I think of that bee, I envy its simplicity. Its ability to return to its hive. To belong. To protect and to serve. Every bee has a role. Every bee helps the other. I think there’s a lot of value in wanting to rely on your community.

XOXO,

Shay

Please LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and SHARE!

---

Follow my socials