Stupid Humans

We do some pretty stupid things.

And I don’t mean ‘we’ as in you and I. No, I mean ‘we’, the royal we, the all-encompassing we that refers to you and me and every other human being on this planet.  The ‘we’ that refers to all us idiots who hurt the ones that we love, and leave chaos in our wake.  The ‘we’ that makes us believe that we are better than everybody else and that makes us think that we need only serve ourselves. The ‘we’ that got us into this mess in the first place.

Yes, we humans do some pretty stupid things. And if 'we' are what represents ‘intelligent life’ then I fear for the sake of all other forms of life.

Actually, I think life would be easier if I was a microorganism with a 20 min doubling time and imminent senescence; a life where my only purpose would be to create copies of myself. It would be a simple life. I would have flagella that moved me in twirls and runs until I was safely ensconced in a place with a high concentration of nutrients, I wouldn’t need a partner to replicate and I would die or form a biofilm way before I even had time to get lonely.

Unfortunately, I am a human and therefore have to live a life in which I crave to put some meaning, or make sense of, because the thought of dying without making an impression on this world terrifies me. I make decisions based on what I think would be viewed as acceptable to my peers and am so terrified of messing up that I couldn’t ever possibly be brave enough to take the step that would make me brilliant.

I am a human and I do some pretty damn stupid things.

And because the latest fashion is to live life with no regrets and to make sure that everyone sees me living my life with no regrets I will pretend like I have never done anything stupid, or anything that I may regret, and I’ll be sure to hashtag myself on social media as living the ultimate life.

But the truth is this; life is messy, it hurts like hell sometimes and some nights you sit at home, lonely as hell, watching some soppy chick flick that makes you want to cry your eyes out and binge eat chocolate. And that is okay, because don’t worry, we’re all doing it.

So no, my life is not perfect and I have done some pretty stupid things. Actually I am busy going through some pretty crappy stuff at the moment. But the important thing is that this too will pass and then I’ll go back to being a normal student whose life goal is to reproduce and find high concentrations of alcohol. And how different is that from a bacterium anyway?