Stories of Humanity

This year, October 6th became a slightly significant day to me. There were a few reasons. I had a couple tests that I’d spent a long time studying for1. Tower of Nero came out today and I’ve been silently buzzed with excitement2. Lastly, the Humans of NY book was released today3. That last reason is the one most pertinent to my blog today because I’ve been reflecting in class lately on what makes characters complex and human.

Humans of NY has been my favorite place to read stories of struggle, joy, love, and resilience. I read narratives of a human and for a moment, experience a part of their life; I think: they’ve really lived. This is the human experience. As a student, especially in quarantine, it’s easy to forget your own existence and even easier to start believing how tiny you are relative to this world of people. I start feeling like Sourdi: staying in standstill as her sister [her whole world] moved along in life or Judd Mulvaney, simultaneously moving too fast and being left behind. But reading these small paragraphs of humanity reveal to me a different perspective of thinking. In those moments, I feel like I’ve really lived too. It’s possible being human is less of a race to gather the most opportunities for storytelling (although that’s also a multifaceted analysis worth considering). Instead being human is just sharing experiences with one another- listening to others and sharing our pain, triumph, growth. Stories of humanity breathe life into us and we are kept alive.

footnotes

1One went well. One did not.

2I told you I had a million Google alerts, didn’t I?

3Alaina, if you’re reading this- thank you for the book I love you :)

(Another perspective courtesy of Pearl)

As a sidenote, I recently posted about HONY within the She’s the First Mobilize Community, highlighting some stories of truly inspiring women. You can click any first lines to read the rest of their posts on Instagram.

“I’d been living a reckless life. I was stealing a lot. I was dabbling in drugs. I’d gotten to the point where I had no hope and no faith…”

“Ever since I was a little girl, I’d been professing that I wanted to be a doctor.”

“We were together for three years. He wasn’t a bad person. He worked hard.”

“In those days there was a blue book in the library with all the faces of children who needed homes.”

“I had very thick hair as a child. But I was also very tender-headed, so I hated getting my hair combed.”

A recently finished 32 part series on Instagram called #TattletalesfromTanqueray (Which was amazing!!)