A Human Being Being Human: A Moment With Bill Reflection

There is no getting around it my friends. We are only human. As badly as we wish to soar with the gods, to flap wings with the heavenly hosts, to sing Hallelujah with the angels, we still rub shoulders with the basest of our nature on a daily basis. Suck in that truth; swirl it around in your mouth like some antiseptic and hope for good breath, but there will be times when our exhale will bring tears to the eyes of the strongest among us.

And what is so wrong with that? If we are to believe in a supreme being who created us in His image and likeness, then we are to believe that all things are as they were meant to be. Who are we to question God? Our job, then, is to continue the struggle, and though we can never attain the pinnacle of perfection, we can still fight the good fight, battle the invincible foe, and tilt the balance sheet in the favor of good.

This, then, is for all of you humans out there.

I have eyes, but often I cannot see. I have these moments when clarity is my steady friend, 20/20 in vision and unfailing in judgment.

I also have moments when I can’t see the truth, shrouded as I am with ego and vanity, tossed and turned in a sea of pre-conceived notions that turn yellow to gray and red to white. No night-vision goggles for this man; toss darkness into the equation and I am blinded, lost and groping for a reference point from which I can make an intelligent decision.

On my best days I can see injustice. On my best days I can see compassion and empathy as surely as I can see the rising sun, and I can encircle those attributes and embrace them as one would a long-lost lover.

On my worst days I am self-centered and wrapped up in a cocoon of apathy. I see no one other than my own reflection, and on those worst days I do not enjoy the view.

There are days when I am steady and strong, a rock worthy of Gibralter, a safe harbor where all vessels are protected and secure.

There are days when my feet are made of clay, and standing strong simply is not in me. A mild breeze will topple me; a slight tremor leaves me in a crumbling pile of best-intentions.

Push me and I will not yield; strike me and I will not bleed….or….look upon me with disdain and I shrivel under your stare, or berate me and I revert back to the insecurities that defined a childhood.

The meanings are jumbled, tumbled, as we stumble, bumble our way, and teachings we learned, lessons we memorized and internalized, somehow get tossed in the raging seas of life, cresting with the waves, brief glimpses, only to sink into the troughs again, out of sight, out of mind, out of touch with that thing called reality.

Where do we turn when the directional signals have shorted out? Do we stop, do we go, do we pump the brakes and hope and pray and sink in quiet supplication to the unyielding force of nature and happenstance?

Or do we simply move forward, always forward, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, breech the walls, men, and push onward, for down the road there is a light, weak during these times of struggle but a light nonetheless, and steer towards it we must, for to do otherwise is to accept darkness as our guide and that simply will not do, will it?

We laugh. We cry. We love always. We try to stay true to our highest calling, and we continually break free from our ugliness. Two sides of the same mirror, and each day we choose which reflection best represents us.

“Await your arrival with simple survival”

They say the road to hell, or is it heaven, is paved with good intentions, and I suspect that most of us have smooth blacktop to travel by, for who knowingly truly wants to cause harm? And yet harm we do cause. An unkind remark here, a shady business deal there, random acts of selfishness or uncaring, measured against the total journey seemingly meaningless and yet….and yet….how many tears caused is too many? How many promises broken swing the scale to the other side?

We awaken at night, cold with sweat, aware of mistakes made and intentions discarded, and we toss, we turn, unable to get comfortable in our own skin, and confessions are just so much malarkey without positive action to support them, so you take from Peter to pay Paul, borrow against the principle, and await a better day when your humanity will once again stand strong in the blackest of your soul’s night, when you can once again sleep through the night, secure in the virtue of a life well-lived.

Live as though you were another person. How would you act then if faced with their challenges? How would you want them to act? What you see they see, don’t you see? None of us are immune from the disease of being human, and none of us are immune from the glory of being human.

The message is clear. The message is eternal. Know your place in the grand scheme of life. Understand that you are not a celestial body around which all others orbit. You are but one of billions, vital in importance and yet insignificant. The higher you stand on that mountain of ego, the more dramatic the fall will be, and yet nobody deserves to be at the mountain base camp looking up.

Such is life. Such is this business of being human.

What is right? What is wrong? Is not “right” subjective? How do we decide and who chooses the universal correct path? Is there a purpose? Do we have a purpose? How in the name of all that is holy do we come to realize our purpose?

The answers will not be found in the latest regurgitated self-help book, for you see there is no instruction manual for life. It is a mystery at birth and a mystery at death and really, that’s the way it should be. As we wade through the mystery we do the best that we can. It will never be enough and it will always be enough, for perfection will always be just out of our grasp and really, now, perfection is greatly overrated.

What’s that you say? You feel cheated you say? You want an answer to the mystery you say?

Then I say alright. I say you deserve a hint, a tip, a push in the right direction as you swim upstream fighting the current. Here it is then; do with it as you will. From this moment on you will have all that you need to reach your destiny as an imperfect, perfect human being.

Do all things with love.

2013 William D. Holland (aka billybuc)

“Making a difference one person at a time.”