Journey to becoming better human being – 48

Is Human being only a puppet?

 

A boy from a slum came first in the dancing competition. What I noticed around was not so much amusement about how he danced, but from the fact that he came from slum. On my questioning, Suresh explained that it was so because we do not expect a person from slum to be so talented. I decided to propose this as a topic for our weekly meeting.

 

“It is mistakenly believed that the environment in which one grows, determines one’s nature.”

 

The nature of a person from village or slum, from poor family, illiterate parents or a family with tensions among parents is likely to be impacted by these factors. This sound reasonable. Certainly, there is a likely influence. But as we probed further, we realised that these are not the only factors. Afterall twins born and grown up in the same family, at the same time with the same environment, often have very different nature.

 

“It is not the environment, but the stand that an individual takes in front of it, that affects the personality.”

 

In a very poor family, one child may become bitter and dream for becoming rich and show the world and the other might accept it as a fate and submit to it. At this point of discussion, we recollected the word ‘mindset’ - discussed in one of our earlier meeting. Environment sends the signal, but it is the mindset of the person with which he interprets and internalise the same.

 

“Human being has intentionality and that fact primarily differentiates it from other species.”

 

The word intentionality had come earlier also. Perhaps it has to do with choice, purpose, aspiration and so on. The situation may be given but within that the human being has a choice and based on that he evolves.

 

“With that the human being becomes maker of the meaning.”

 

This statement was little difficult to grasp. Rita explained with a story. Once in monsoon, there was thundering of the clouds and lightning struck. A man was killed. Some people gathered and wondered why the lightning struck in the first place, why did it hit that man and why did he die. They concluded that this man was a sinner and to punish him god killed him with lightning.

 

In this case who observed the incidence, who enquired and who concluded - the human being. The conclusion that the god has punished that man, is arrived at by whom – the human being. When it was said that God punished that man, the fact that there is God and there is something in his mind is also thought by whom – the human being.

 

Thus, can we say that in this case, it is the human being who conceived the idea of God and his plans. He gave meaning to what we witnessed.

 

Throughout history human beings have inquired about the nature, the world and about human being themselves. They have been trying to find the meaning of their world. They came out with different responses and from there evolved subjects like religion, economics, social model, philosophy etc. Thus, it was the human being who enquires, and it is the human being who responds. All these is created by human being and ideally should be at the service of the humanity.

 

“At some time, all these, instead of being at the service of humanity got monopolised by few and started being used to harm and exploit other human beings.”

 

Thus, religion was used to threaten the believers with punishments and promote fanaticism. Social models were used in the form of caste system to discriminate against people. Economic models were used to exploit people calling them as cheap labour. People were labelled and were attributed with certain nature, altogether ignoring that each person is a human being and has his own internal world with feelings, aspirations and intentions.

 

In the world in which we live, the tendency is to ‘use’ other human beings for one’s own benefit. Thus, there are readers for newspapers and consumers for business, voters for politicians and followers for leaders. They are valued as long as they are useful. Once the purpose is over or they cannot serve the purpose anymore, then - use and throw – just the way I do with my ball pen.

 

When the fact that each of them are human being with own feeling, aspirations, world view etc. is snubbed, it is the dehumanisation – removing the humanness from the other being. On the other hand, when we start recognising each one around us as a distinct human being, we are respecting their intentionality and humanness.

 

As I reflected, I realised that time and again I have been ‘used’ and, I have also ‘used’ other human being. I decided to be more observant in my relationship with others learning to see the ‘humanness’ in them.

 

We learnt that human being is not a puppet. It is the human being who creates the meaning of whatever is happening around him. Humanisation is to give this dignity and respect to every human being.

 

With this marvellous learning about the human beings, I leapt forward in my journey to becoming better human being.