HUMAN BECOMING

I've begun using a phrase increasingly in my work.

Human Becoming.

And the more I contemplate it, the more important it seems to me.

Because, of course, there's an obvious problem with the phrase.

We're human already.

So what exactly is there to become?

I'm approaching sixty, and perhaps strangely, I feel more curious about that question now than I would have done at twenty.

Because I'm clearly not the same person I was then.

And I don't simply mean older.

Things matter differently.

Some things that once seemed enormously important have lost their hold over me.

Other things matter more.

Such as love.

Connection.

Beauty.

Rejecting judgement.

And those unexpected moments when something stops me in my tracks and reminds me just how extraordinary it is to be here at all.

And I ask...

What is actually changing when a human being grows?

Because life doesn't just pass in front of us.

It gets inside us.

People change us.

A loss changes us.

Love changes us.

A beautiful place can.

And a frightening experience can.

Sometimes a single conversation can leave us seeing something we can never quite unsee.

And so there comes a question:

Who am I becoming when I can no longer return unchanged from what I have experienced?

That question lies somewhere near the heart of what I mean by Human Becoming.

 For thousands of years, human beings have asked: Who am I?

The ancient Greeks gave us Know thyself.

Psychology asks us to understand the patterns and unconscious processes that shape us.

Spiritual traditions have often invited us to loosen our attachment to the ego.

These are profound enquiries, and very, very worthy ones.

But I'm increasingly interested in what happens next.

Because I believe self-knowledge isn't the destination.

In fact, it's the point at which a different journey becomes possible.

Once I begin to see myself more clearly, what do I do with what I've seen?

Once I recognise my judgements, do I continue to live from them?

Once I recognise how fear narrows my world, can I always remain curious?

Once I've experienced genuine love, can I ever return to a world in which only my own wellbeing matters?

So then Know thyself eventually gives way to another question:

Now that I have knowledge of myself, who am I capable of becoming?

And importantly, I don't think there is a finished version of us waiting at the end.

Human Becoming isn't a journey towards perfection.

We will always remain gloriously unfinished. 

This is where phenomenology entered my thinking.

Phenomenology sounds complicated.

But its starting point is wonderfully intimate.

What is it actually like to be here?

To be you.

In this body.

At this moment.

Experiencing this life.

Because none of us encounters the world from nowhere.

I experience it from here.

Through everything that has happened to me.

Through memory.

Expectation.

My body.

My fears.

The things I love.

The things I've lost.

You experience it from somewhere I can never completely occupy.

And that means something remarkable.

We never simply observe the world.

We participate in our experience of it.

The same rain can be beautiful to one person and miserable to another.

A house becomes home.

A piece of music becomes inseparable from somebody we loved.

A place we have walked past a hundred times becomes precious because of something that happened there.

The world acquires meaning through our relationship with it.

And if our consciousness participates in the experience we have of life, then the quality of our consciousness matters.

Our attention matters.

Our curiosity matters.

And the words we use matter.

How willing I am to encounter a perspective other than my own matters.

And Human Becoming asks:

How am I participating in being alive?

And this is where Human Becoming can’t become sentimental.

Because being fully alive isn't always comfortable.

Life can be breathtakingly beautiful.

And it can hurt beyond anything we thought ourselves capable of carrying.

The same openness that allows us to experience extraordinary joy leaves us exposed to sorrow.

Love makes another human being matter to us.

And therefore love creates the possibility of grief.

Hope opens us towards a future that may never arrive.

Belonging gives us somewhere from which we can be separated.

Caring gives us something we can lose.

So I don't think becoming more fully human means becoming invulnerable.

Quite the opposite.

Vulnerability isn't the goal. Openness is. Vulnerability is the price of openness.

And courage isn't becoming so strong that nothing can hurt us.

Courage is knowing that life can hurt us...and it will hurt us…

and remaining open to it anyway.

There's something about that I find deeply moving.

Because the things capable of breaking our hearts tell us something about what has already enlarged them.

If something is worth grieving, then perhaps it was worth loving. 

And eventually, I think Human Becoming has to take us beyond the self.

We can spend an enormous amount of time understanding ourselves.

Our childhood.

Our patterns.

Our personality.

Our wounds.

Our identity.

All of that can be enormously valuable.

But there is surely a point at which self-understanding has to become relationship.

What happens when another person's experience matters as much as my own?

What happens when I encounter someone I profoundly disagree with and resist the temptation to reduce them to my judgement of them?

What happens when the natural world stops being scenery and becomes something I recognise myself as belonging to and being part of?

What happens when consciousness becomes less preoccupied with itself?

This is why the feeling of awe fascinates me.

Think of those moments when you've encountered something so beautiful, so vast or so unexpected that for a moment...

you just stopped.

Perhaps it was a night sky.

The ocean.

Music.

A newborn child.

The face of someone you love…

Sometimes there just aren't even words.

The self hasn't disappeared.

But somehow it just retreats….

And I've come to believe that:

The greatest experiences of our lives don't usually make us feel bigger. But they do make us feel part of something bigger.

And that's one of the directions Human Becoming takes us.

Not towards a bigger self.

Towards a larger sense of belonging. 

 And this is where something deeply personal begins to have global consequences.

Perhaps one measure of our becoming is simply:

How much of life are we capable of allowing to matter?

At first, our circle may be small.

Me.

My survival.

The people I love.

My community.

My tribe.

But that circle can widen.

Someone whose life is nothing like mine can matter.

Someone on the other side of the world can matter.

Another species can matter.

A forest can matter.

An ocean can matter.

A child who hasn't yet been born can matter.

And perhaps this is where Human Becoming becomes urgent.

Because humanity has become extraordinarily powerful.

We can split atoms.

Alter genomes.

Explore other planets.

Build machines capable of forms of intelligence that would have seemed unimaginable within our grandparents' lifetimes.

Yet our increasing capability raises a much more important question:

Is our consciousness growing alongside our power?

Can compassion keep pace with capability?

Can wisdom keep pace with intelligence?

Can our circle of concern become large enough for the power we now possess?

Because human beings are capable of extraordinary tenderness.

And terrible cruelty.

We create music and weapons.

Medicine and warfare.

Sanctuaries and concentration camps.

We protect life and destroy it.

Human Becoming therefore cannot be a comforting belief that humanity is inevitably getting better.

History tells us that it isn't.

It's a responsibility.

So where does that leave us?

Sometimes we talk about becoming conscious as though seeing clearly were the destination.

I'm beginning to think it's just the beginning.

Because once we begin to see differently, life asks something of us.

Once I recognise another person's humanity, what will I do with that recognition?

Once I understand my relationship with nature, how will I live?

Once I recognise my own judgement, will I continue to let it define another person?

Once I know what I love, will I have the courage to protect it?

Once I've experienced awe, can I return completely unchanged to a world organised only around myself?

Maybe this is where Human Becoming really begins.

Not with awakening. With response.

Life touches us.

We notice.

And then something is asked of us.

At the moment, Human Becoming is leaving me with six questions.

What brings me alive?

What am I actually experiencing?

What does being open to life cost?

What do I belong to?

What really matters?

And finally:

What are we becoming?

I don't want to answer those questions too quickly.

I want to live with them.

Because perhaps that's what this enquiry asks of us.

To remain curious enough to be changed.

Courageous enough to remain open.

Humble enough to recognise that our perspective is never the whole.

And awake...or even alive enough...

to experience the wonder of being here at all.

We are here for such a short time.

And during that astonishing interval, we get to participate.

We get to love, knowing we may lose.

To hope without certainty.

To create.

To care.

To forgive.

To suffer.

To notice beauty.

To encounter other minds.

To stand occasionally beneath an enormous sky and wonder how any of this is happening at all.

And through these experiences, life is continually inviting us into something larger than the person we were yesterday.

Not simply:

Know thyself.

But:

What will you do with what you now know?

Not:

How can I become invulnerable?

But:

What is worth remaining open for?

Not simply:

Who am I?

But:

Who am I becoming when I can no longer return unchanged from what I have experienced?

That, for me, is Human Becoming.

Life calls us into experience.

Experience calls us into awareness.

Awareness calls us into relationship.

Relationship calls us into responsibility.

And perhaps responsibility asks the most important question of all:

Given this extraordinary, fragile and temporary opportunity to be here... what might we yet become?