LOSING HUMANITY

 BY TREASURE EKANEM

“I think I’m losing faith in humanity.” 

I get too engrossed in the things I do sometimes, and my roommates and friends have gotten used to repeating statements before I get to hear them. So, when I looked up at Sandy, the look on her let me know that she had made that statement to me more than once. I was piqued cause Sandy is one of the few friends I have that wholeheartedly lets me be the talker. She doesn’t voice out her thoughts and issues words sparingly. I knew whatever made her come all the way to my bed to say this must have burdened her a lot. So, I put my PC down, and asked, “Why do you think so?”

No one truly loves any more. No one truly cares any more. No one gives selflessly anymore. No one trusts wholeheartedly anymore. We hate ourselves and we let it show in everything we do. We have become so self absorbed that as far as a concern doesn’t directly affect us, we wouldn’t care if it all goes to hell. We are so consumed in our own interests that we are willing to lose people and relationships in the name of putting ourselves first. We are careless with our words and unbothered at how deeply it could cut the next person since apology videos are easy to do. We glorify immorality and are okay with being unkind because it makes us feel better than the next person. We have lost all sympathy. We have lost our humanity.

Obviously, she didn’t put it in this exact way, but this is the summary of what she said. It struck me hard because in the first place, I had never heard Sandy speak for so long at a sitting since I knew her, and the painful ring of conviction in her words were hard to ignore. I try not to pry into my friends’ lives unless they specifically ask for my opinion so I couldn’t ask her if there was something else that happened on a more personal level. 

But I remember that she had said something the previous night about "The Anonymous Night" being conducted in her department. This may ring a bell only for people in my part of the world but it is basically a night where an anonymous link is sent that grants people the ability to talk about anyone or anything without your identity being leaked to either the organisers or the person you’re talking about. 

So, she ended up seeing a few terrible messages about her, and concluded that even though the platform was a means to cowardly air out your views, she didn’t deserve the deprecating comments she had gotten and attributed it to people losing all sympathy, and not caring the actual damage their words can cause.

I’ve come to understand something about social media. It was created to bring us closer together but it’s one of the biggest factors of why we are apart and hate ourselves so passionately now, and because of curating our online personalities I order to gain likes, comments and laughs, we lose our soul and what makes us truly human. 

As sad as it may sound, I really didn’t know what to say to her that would make her feel better. I did tell her that she shouldn’t let the things people in her department said about her affect her. But for the rest of the other things, I could only tell her that she was going to be okay, and she should not let our speedily deteriorating world change her innate ability to be good and show kindness to all she comes across. Because in the end that’s all we can really do, right? Do what’s right from our own end.