Thought Picnic: Would our humanity rise to make a useful difference?

Our calling

What seems to be missing in the story of our humanity is the inability to identify. People who are too preoccupied with themselves, their views, their position or their beliefs to be affected by experiences of others no matter how moving.

There are many events and issues going on in the world around us, some begging for us to acknowledge, recognise, appreciate and understand.

People who for situation, circumstance or experience have no voice either because they have been silenced or because they do not know who to cry out to, and there are many around us.

Our seeing

These are things that we can either be wilfully blind to or actively seeking to understand, sympathise and empathise.

Where we move out of our comfort zones and the padded lifestyles that seem to isolate us from harm and the gruesome reality of others to engage fully in providing support and succour to those around us.

We must not forget how ephemeral life is, how fortunes change and how whatever happens to us in life it is imperative that we do not lose touch with reality and the reality of others.

Our mortality

Everything is for a season, for those who have power or are in proximity to power, kings come and kings go, thrones endure for a while and kingdoms can be overturned in the passage of time to form new hierarchies.

Be aware of your humanity and your responsiveness to others, use power fairly, judiciously, proportionately and responsibly. For in the end, history is judge, a severe one at that, the memories of ills done in commission or indifference in omission are carved into enduring rocks of time as a salutary lesson to all.

Our legacy

However, when real good is done to celebrate our greater humanity, it would be for a memorial from generation to generation and the doers of such would have transcended from being mere men and politicians to great statesmen to identify with.

A legacy beckons, the masonry has already begun on the rocks of eternal scrutiny, for some #BringBackOurGirls might just determine the kind of people we are, those who have a heart of flesh or those who have a heart of stone.