We Matter

Photo by Noorulabdeen Ahmad on Unsplash

We are by all odds the most persistently and obsessively social of all species, more dependent on each other than the famous social insects, and really, when you look at us, infinitely more imaginative and deft at social living. We are good at this; it is the way we have built all our cultures and the literature of our civilizations. We have high expectations and set high standards for our social behavior, and when we fail at it and endanger the species — as we have done several times in this [the 20th] century — the strongest words we can find to condemn ourselves and our behavior are the telling words “inhuman” and “inhumane.”

There is nothing at all absurd about the human condition. We matter. It seems to me a good guess, hazarded by a good many people who have thought about it, that we may be engaged in the formation of something like a mind for the life of this planet.

Lewis Thomas