To be human is to carry both the capacity for immense love, compassion, and unspeakable harm.
We are not born hating others. Not born violent. Not born cruel.
We learn it. We inherit it.
From family.
From history, from fear, from the illusion that power must be taken, not shared.
I have been asked: what makes a human behave like an animal?
But even that question is unfair, because animals do not kill for cruelty.
They kill to eat, to defend, to survive.
Humans, on the other hand, kill with words, with laws, with silence.
Yes, our silence encourages ruthless and cruel leaders to continue their crimes in our names.
We make others suffer not always from need, but from want.
Wanting control. Wanting vengeance. Wanting more.
That is not nature. That is the shadow only humans cast: the knowing misuse of power.
Why, then, do we see the suffering of others as natural?
Because we have seen too much of it.
We scroll past bleeding headlines. We step over the homeless.
We shake our heads at war, then go on with dinner.
Not always because we do not care, but often because we have been trained to believe: their pain is not our responsibility.
They are Arabs. They are Muslims. They are Jews. They are Mexicans. They are Black. They are Christians. They are… they are.
This indifference becomes a cause for the suffering of others, under our watchful eyes.
In that belief, we forget what makes us human.
We forget that to be human is not just to walk upright: it is to feel.
To hurt for others. To grieve strangers.
To cry when a Palestinian man child, not yours, is crushed beneath the weight of someone else’s war.
Being human is not a birthright.
It is a daily choice.
A choice to lean toward compassion when cruelty is easier.
A choice to see the world not through the lens of indifference, but with eyes that tear, with a heart that bruises.
When we stop choosing to be human, we become something worse than animals.
We become creatures who know better, but no longer care.
Stay human. Even when the world forgets how. Even when it hurts. Even when it is easier to turn away.
Because in remembering the suffering of others, we remember the very thing that makes us worthy of the name: Human.
———————-
About the author:
Dr. Abraham Khoureis is a multi-talented thought leader and partner who utilizes his writing and influence for positive social change.
