Humanity, and humanity – Praneeth Lakshman, The Tiffin School

I want to just take today to talk about humanity, as a whole. As you probably are aware, the population of the world is nearing 8 billion Homo sapiens. 8 billion! I think it is fair to say that we are one of the most successful species to ever grace this planet, and we have – selfishly, may I add – twisted this entire planet into aiding our survival – and we successfully survive. Now more than ever, more kids are growing up to see their 10th birthdays and more adults are experiencing their 80ths than ever before. However, to survive is the first step, but do we thrive? And how can we thrive? A lot of people, to that question, would cite one fundamental aspect of the human nature, like intelligence or creativity. And I must agree; without intelligence, you can’t begin to tread on the paths of the people who came before. Without creativity, you are doomed to only walk on trodden paths, never to explore the unknown and glean its secrets. However, we live in an age with the highest literacy rates, and with the highest amount of art and other creative media produced ever – I mean, 100 years ago film was a glorified flick book. Imagine trying to tell them how awesome the Star Wars trilogies were, or how utterly ironic Skynet is. But with these advancements in intelligent and creative endeavours, I ask the question again: are we thriving?

In England, 5219 suicides were registered in 2021. The overall suicide rate? 11 per 100,000 people. Most affected group? Males aged between 50 and 54 years. Why? According to the Samaritans, deprivation, debt, and inequality. But those are statistical points. Those do no justice, no justice at all, to the man who worked two jobs a day to feed his children and couldn’t take it anymore. It does not do justice to the woman who spent her last moments feeling utterly, utterly alone. They might have been a scientist, an artist, an engineer, anything that could allow them to express their intelligence or creativity. But that clearly isn’t enough for our humanity to thrive. While suicide rates are an extreme, the general population in England are still not the happiest group of people and I think we know that from experience. Political instability, economic instability and much more recently social instability over the last 6 months have had a profound, and likely long-lasting, effect on people’s ability to thrive. That’s why I think that we should turn to something else to ensure humanity thrives: humanity.

This humanity isn’t about the 8 billion people around the globe: it’s about the people around you. The people you all meet on a day-to-day basis, who you have a relationship with, either platonic, romantic or familial. This humanity is about compassion, and the connection between us. This connection is what allows us to thrive, and what has always allowed us to thrive. Anthropologists believe that our ability to communicate in spoken language is the single most important behavioural change that we underwent, and what allowed for our widespread success in surviving across the globe. We thrive on communication; survival is a necessary side effect of this. Our connection is what propelled us to the deepest depths of our oceans, to the towering heights of our tallest peaks, and even beyond this planet to the Moon and hopefully to Mars. Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first climber confirmed to reach the top of Mount Everest, didn’t do it alone. He did it with a local Nepalese mountaineer, called Tenzing Norgay. It was this bond, this connection that allowed both to achieve what no human had done before, by using a very simple fact. Very simple: you don’t have to do it alone. It’s never me vs the world; it’s just us together, struggling together, but succeeding together as one. After his successful expedition, Sir Hillary devoted the rest of his life to developing the Nepalese community that had welcomed him with open arms, building hospitals, schools, houses – all because of a forged bond. That’s what’s important in this life. I was talking earlier about how intelligence allows you to access the knowledge of the past and the present, and how creativity allows you to explore uncharted space – but this compassion and connection will allow you to thrive and succeed in any, anything you possibly want to do.

So now what? I’ve preached about making these connections, but of course, saying it is so much easier than doing it. Unfortunately, I cannot give you a step-by-step tutorial on forging these meaningful relationships – I simply don’t know the exact situation and context for all of you for my advice to be of any use. But that, in itself, is what is so exciting – you can learn 1000 books’ worth of information from talking, properly, to one person. As I can’t be of any more help, I will give you instead three tenets to help you navigate this exciting journey. First, the best communicator is a mute communicator. Actively listening to someone, and giving them words of encouragement while they are speaking, establishes you as someone who cares about them, because you do. You care about what they have to say, care about their thoughts and opinions. Secondly, talk to someone about what they want to talk about. Don’t force a subject onto your subjects! And thirdly, everybody has a story, and in that narrative they gained a lot of wisdom. Everybody. Hear their wisdom, listen to their wisdom, understand their wisdom – it is the greatest gift they can give you. And of course, this all should be taken to be equal when on the other side of the communication – when you are giving, rather than receiving. Overall, I just wanted to highlight that these are difficult times for everybody; there always has been and there always will be. Solutions for these are difficult, they change every single time, nothing is constant. The only constant is all of us. Yes, humans are very skilled in being intelligent or creative, but humanity as a whole will only thrive with humanity as the soul.