HumanOS

Before you are moSotho, mo Pedi, South Africa, Jewish, Mother, Boss, you are a Human.

I believe this to be true.

You’re a human first. Any title, or role you assume, even that of a consumer is superseded by your humanness. We are called human beings for a reason, and we so easily forget to focus on our being. If the higher power intended for us to be the busy bees and chasers we’ve been socially programmed to become, ?then the right name for us would be human doings.

Being human. Let’s talk a little more about that.

In my estimation, it is our consciousness and imagination that separates us from other life forms. We have the ability to create and build. Yet we at times use these to cause harm and damage to fellow beings, and our environment. ?Are we truly the smartest versions in creation? Or are we the privileged ones who’ve squandered our inherent goodwill?

When we are at our best, we dial into radio stations and offer donations to a distressed caller who may need support We make eye contact with the mother and child begging on our street corner. Even when we have no money to offer, we can offer them the highest and most priceless gift. Dignity. For, in our exchange, we show that they are ‘seen’ and they ‘matter’.

In our good moments, we support fund-raising causes aimed at uplifting communities. Filling the cracks left by our increasingly corrupt government. We create circles of safety, in which we can cradle each other’s hearts, sharing from our most pained spaces; not as a public display of woundedness. Rather as an offering. An acceptance of a shared recovery.

In the spaces shared with other humans, we are uplifted by the soothing balm of ?“kinship.” The reminder you are not alone. ?Exchanging coping mechanisms, restorative practices, and support to our fellow humans.

It is when we gather and connect in this way when we co-create with positive intention, that we advance humanity and also nurture ourselves.

It is such practices and soul-resetting behaviours that informed my concept of the HumanOS.

The Human Operating System.

Computers and cars have operating systems, which when entangled or overworked can be rebooted to restore factory settings. How do we reboot or restore the HumanOS to factory settings? What are those factory settings?

My lived experience, ?suggests that our factory-setting is fixed on a dial of love. ?As we grow and evolve, we are hurt, and disappointed. We experience?loss. Each time we encounter harshness, are excluded, judged, overlooked in favour of the privileged, cheated out of fair pay, deprived of fair access to opportunity, discriminated against, shamed for being different (e.g. childfree), or are ‘othered;" we gradually learn the opposite of love. We put on a robe of self-protection, we learn to anticipate and expect harm from others, and sometimes we even cause harm to ourselves (addiction, self-loathing, self-sabotage).

In this modality, we assume the boxer’s stance, jaws clenched, hands curled into fists at eye level, shoulders hunched, we focus on defence of self. Building walls to protect our hearts, not knowing that there comes a point where the boundary becomes your bondage. When such ugliness stains our purity, then we learn to FEAR and embrace it as a North Star. A great pity and a fully understandable reaction.

How then do you reboot the HumanOS?

Like the computer, ?we must format the human device. We’re wiping the slate clean and starting afresh. Each day upon waking we have the opportunity to set our hearts to LOVE - not the mooshy, greetings card, insta-friendly claim uttered at everything including the turmeric latte. I mean truly set our hearts to LOVE. An unyielding intentionality to be good and radiate goodness towards all beings. This extends to the aggressive driver of a fast German car who zig-zags in the traffic and causes havoc for all. the ‘rotten apple’ police officer who pulls you over and demands a bribe, the teenager who grunts instead of speaks, nose deep in her device seeking ?‘friends’ in the ethernet, to the 30-year-old who disses older folks, ?forgetting that she will grow older one day (if she is so lucky), to the racist lady who assumes that your blackness means you are uncouth, to the client who disrespects your value by suggesting ‘you are expensive’, the relative who sees you as the family ATM, not a family member, the boss who throws you under the bus each time their superiors pummel them for non-delivery, the list is endless. I am certain you have things peculiar to you. The point is made.

Writing in Humankind - A Hopeful History, Rutger Bregman suggests that “it's when a crisis hits — when the bombs fall or the floodwaters rise — that we humans become our best selves.” We have missed plenty of opportunities to rise to our best selves in past moments. Despite the avalanche of negativity in the world, we should not give up believing in our goodness and the goodness of all humankind. That we keep our interior lighthouses on, as a beacon to others who are also rebooting their way back to what makes us whole. We have the opportunity each waking day to self-correct. Aiming for a higher version of the self is by definition an acceptance that we are moving from one horizon to the next, and what gets you from here to there is not only deliberate, it is also fuelled by an internal fire that refuses to be doused by discouraging externalities.

The point is, that the human form is an operating system with intricate neural pathways, veins, vessels, and all sorts that work to keep the machine going. It is an ecosystem premised upon intersectionality, interconnectedness, and constant motion.

So, when you service the HumanOS and format it, you are writing a new code, a new foundation that can support the software of your heart and the hardware of your mind.

When was the last time you had an update? You know, like a software update?

When was the last time you had a reboot? A proper log-out? A chance to BE and not DO.

As you ponder this, I wish you (as always) clarity in understanding what must be re-booted and reformatted and the courage to carry through.