Forgotten How

It's odd that, as a whole, we believe our society is more advanced, smarter, healthier--simply better than societies have been in the past--when in reality we are less happy than we were a few years ago on average according to polls. If we have everything so figured out and together, why don't we know how to do something so fundamental as enjoy life? We may have gained a better understanding of how to increase our life-spans, but are less sure what to do with those extra years. We know how to watch TV, but not how to watch our children grow up and enjoy the moments spent with them. We know how to text a friend but not how to look them in the eyes and understand their heart. We know how to get happy but not how to be joyful. We know there is a problem but not how to fix it. We know more but understand less.

I’ve eaten lunches with people who are so busy on their phone or computer or tablet to ask me my name. Sure, they may work next to me, they may know that it, but they don’t know to reach out to a human being. They don’t know how to make eye-contact. It’s completely contradictory that we humans are afraid of what it is to be a human and unwilling to learn. Even though they know that to be human is to be real and that to be anything other than that is to not be at all—aside from being a fake. We are so attached to things and the acquisition of things that we have lost sight of who we are and what we are made to do.