Okay, I’m going to start off by pointing out something hilarious that happened while preparing to write this post. In an attempt to come up with some synonyms for “person,” I thought of the term homo sapien (very scientific of me, isn’t it?) But I wasn’t entirely sure if I was getting the term right or if I was spelling it right. So, like every other intelligent, educated, and adult person would do…I Googled it. And I couldn’t have asked for a funnier, more appropriate first result from that search–the Urban Dictionary definition of homo sapien. It is as follows:
“A pitiful race that will most likely cause its own extinction before its technologies fully develop.”
Okay, I know it’s cynical. (And if you’re not familiar with Urban Dictionary…Google it). But you have to admit–partly true and kinda funny. However, I think there’s a whole lot more to the human race than this downer of a definition.
Now, I’m not even going to attempt to write a post that aims to describe the human race in full. Because…well, that would be stupid. It’s not possible, and I wouldn’t have the patience for it even if it was. What I am going to write about is something that Urban Dictionary, once again, inspired within me.
As I scrolled down the list of Urban Dictionary definitions for homo sapien, I was suddenly struck by the fact that most of the definitions, while not very “scientific”, were overwhelmingly negative. And the ones that weren’t negative were simply neutral. As I went from one to the next, I found myself reading insult after insult of the human race, calling it a devourer of resources, or superficial, or spiteful, judgmental, arrogant, and greedy. The strange thing–these definitions were written by humans! (Well, I’m assuming).
So then I got to thinking–when we are given a chance to define ourselves as a species, why the sudden self-hatred? What brought these people to write such awful things about the human race…their own species? Could it simply be a matter of a glass-half-full-or-half-empty perspective? Are these people simply the world’s greatest pessimists?
Or do they not realize that they cannot dissociate themselves from the term homo sapien? Because they can’t. Or do they think their definitions exclude them? Do they think their definitions exclude some of the “greatest” human beings to have lived on this earth?
These are all the questions that ran through my mind as I was reading the list. Now, I’m not going to argue that all of their definitions are terribly wrong and that there’s no accuracy to them whatsoever. Honestly, some of them were brutal but honest. Yes, human beings can be all these awful things. We can be greedy, judgmental, arrogant, violent, and cruel. Sometimes we destroy things around us. We even destroy each other. We are selfish. We are ignorant. We are monsters. I’m not saying they’re wrong.
I just think there’s one thing missing. The but.
We are all these things, but we are also many other things. Like intelligent. Sure, sometimes we use our intelligence “for evil,” but sometimes we use it for good as well. We’ve used it to cure diseases. We’ve used it to connect with one another. We’ve used it to explain and understand things that were once unexplainable. The list goes on.
Just as we have a great capacity for cruelty, we also have a great capacity for kindness and love. We care for others around us and make sacrifices for those we love–sometimes even for those we don’t even know. We stand up for the ones who can’t stand up for themselves. We help pick up those who have fallen. We learn to adapt and live with one another when we were previously led to believe we never could.
We make huge mistakes, but we also make huge leaps in the right direction. We find solutions to previously unsolvable problems.
We offer help to the young woman who has a flat tire along the side of the road. We take children in who don’t have a home and treat them as if they were our own.
We fall in love. We make each other laugh. We produce beautiful works of art. We are inspired by the world around us. Every now and then, one of us sparks a revolution.
And once, a very special one of us walked this earth, lived a perfect life, and gave it all up to save the rest of us.
The rest of us, we are not perfect. Sometimes we are monsters. We make mistakes. We keep making mistakes. And not for a moment should we think that there’s nothing we can do to better ourselves. There’s a lot of room for improvement. There always is.
Do I think that as some things get better, a lot of other things are getting worse? Absolutely. I’m reminded of it every day. But what will we choose to say when asked what defines us as human beings? Are we no more than creatures roaming this earth with no purpose, only seeking to help ourselves and destroy everything in our wake?
No. We are more. We are more than our mistakes and failures and screw ups. We are more than our bad qualities. We are more than those Urban Dictionary definitions.
And to the one who wrote that the best thing that can be said about us as humans is that “we are where God went wrong”–I will politely disagree.
God knew exactly what he was doing when he created us in His image. He didn’t go wrong. We did. Isn’t that what you just said in your definition? We are the screw-ups.
And yet God’s still willing to love us even though we can be the monsters you’ve described in your definitions. And he can take those monsters and turn us around, and inspire us, and change us, and give us strength and purpose that we could never find on our own.
I see the evil in this world. I know we’re imperfect. I know we’re cruel. I know we’re selfish and destructive. I don’t deny it, and I don’t try to dissociate myself from it. I am all those things.
I also know that’s not the whole story. There’s so much more to it.
We are monsters. But God makes us beautiful.
Let’s not forget the but.
Brianna Lee Kauffman 