07/09/2025 (Austin Day 3): Humanity All the Time

I’m finally settling into vacation mode with family. It’s a slow and lazy morning out in nature and I don’t have much on the brain other than being here in the moment.

I always make the observation in jest when people do mundane things, but it really is true - in the joking and serious sense - that the human condition is amazing to behold. We all have so much in common, and yet we find ourselves unique. We complain about what others do around us, meanwhile we are part of the population too, and therefore we contribute to that overarching human nature that we all share. 

I guess actively trying to be mindful as often as possible reveals a lot of miniscule details I would otherwise miss, like so many others that overlook them every single day. It’s equally humbling and difficult to observe the people at work, to watch them do amazing things one minute and contribute no attention or meaning the next. And this raises the question: where’s the balance between being an active functioning member of society and being present but completely disconnected? Why is it so hard to get people to look up, or to care about humanity on a personal and/or global scale? Why do I ask these questions when I’m on vacation, trying to relax and not think about the world being on fire? 

I guess it’s because life is constantly happening, whether you’re on a break from work and life as you know it or whether you never take a break at all. These thoughts are always a reminder of how different I feel than the general population as I ponder amongst the wandering crowd. It’s not always good, and it’s not always bad, but it’s just humanity all the time and all the same. There will always be meaningful and crucial moments in the midst of the surplus of empty and absurd ones we’ve learned to bombard and distract ourselves with - with the help of those little computers in our pockets. 

I also ironically use the phrase, “What a time to be alive” a lot, in a variety of serious and sarcastic ways. But maybe I’m the cause of annoyance and frustration for someone like that other person is for me. Maybe someone remembers a different version of me that isn’t so nice, like I’m quick to judge a stranger off one instant of a bad interaction. And maybe if we were aware that everything was a chain reaction and we practiced more empathy, we’d actually try to break that cycle and try harder to be good humans. 

Perhaps the meaningful stuff would outweigh the empty stuff if we just looked up and observed the world around us and the people in it now and then.