Aug. 1997	Athens News - View Point

The Challenge Of Being Human By John F.L. Ross

AS HALF of Athens prepares for its annual holiday exodus and 
the other half to celebrate a major athletics event, it takes 
an act of inspired perversity to dwell on imponderables like 
that suggested in the title.  An odd time, you might think, 
to be philosophising about anything at all, especially on the 
gloomier side (is there any other?).  Maybe it is a thoroughly 
contrarian spirit, or a desire to provoke.  Or maybe I just 
need a holiday myself.

The search for some meaning of life remains the most basic 
of questions, and, naturally, the most elusive in terms of 
answers.  This also means that amateur philosophers risk 
being very naive, or silly, in raising any matters relating 
to it; as Oscar Wilde once put it, "life is far too serious 
a matter ever to talk seriously about." By the same token, 
such contemplating gives two great advantages, allowing one
to (a) generalise outrageously, and (b) pose questions 
without having to answer them.  To wit: have you ever 
considered how difficult it is to be a human being? I am 
not speaking here of becoming a famous or great or wealthy 
or otherwise notable person or personality: simply in the 
everyday, never-ending challenge of measuring up to who we 
are, or are supposed to be, already, much less the innate 
challenge to better ourselves and realise whatever talents 
we might possess.  It truly boggles the mind to think about 
the pressures that we all bear, and the constant balancing 
act that life calls upon us to perform.  Daily we must face 
the demands of work, and of others, regardless of how we 
might have slept the night before or what other pressures we 
might have.  We must meet these external demands with tact 
and patience.  We need to remain somewhat hopeful in spite 
of the disasters, great and small that lurk everywhere.  
We are called upon to deal with difficult situations not of 
our own making, or those created accidently or as a result 
of something else.  We must somehow balance work and leisure,
and matters of the mind with those of the emotions and spirit.

We must be good companions, even when facing personal troubles,
and keep our spirits up even when logic suggests despair to 
be a better response.  We must keep dignity even in the face 
of endless chores and petty humiliations.  We must learn when 
to face matters directly and when to retreat.  We must think 
intelligently about our own choices, yet learn to trust our 
instincts.  We must handle thousands of diverting complications
while keeping a sense of meaning about it all.  We must 
continue to aim high, even when life deals us blow after
unexpected blow.  We must grapple with loss, often without 
preparation and usually without sufficient time to grieve or 
recover.  We must learn to be truly ourselves even while 
constantly adjusting to the demands and needs of others, 
and to exercise our will for independent action without 
stepping on their sensibilities.  And we must keep a sense of 
humanity even while toughening to deal with the daily assault
on our minds and senses.  And just imagine that all this and 
more faces us virtually every day.  When we fail, as fail we 
will, we must somehow pick ourselves off the ground and start 
anew.  The task is doubly hard when the failure cannot be 
blamed on anyone else but ourselves; pain may be the greatest 
teacher, but it is also the sternest.  The process is 
bruising, and we are all, in our own way, damaged goods.

Rudyard Kipling recognised such difficulties in his wonderful 
poem, "If".  After cataloguing life's endless challenges, he 
concluded, in a message to his son, that if he could manage 
it all with dignity and measure, "then you will be a man, 
my son." Not a superior human being or a great person; just 
a man.  Dwelling on it can be depressing stuff; how can any 
of us measure up, especially with so few markers to go by?
Yet one could as easily stand in awe of what we accomplish 
continually, just by getting through it all in one piece and 
sometimes even emerging richer from the experience.   People 
everywhere face these questions, but life here seems to 
present them with unusual force and clarity. Greece has often 
been called a uniquely "human" place, with all its ancient 
explorations into the mysteries of life; just as often, and
with perhaps equal justification; Athens has been labelled an 
"inhuman" city.  Which is correct? In fact, the distinction is 
a false one; both are right.  "Humanity" is not some abstract 
ideal, but embodies good and bad alike. A country that doesn't 
(yet) allow artifice to overwhelm the human side provides an 
ideal testing-ground for such ideas.  Greece, especially 
Athens, is not an easy place to keep dignity and decorum and 
the manifestations of its human dime Parents who haul their 
hyperactive offspring to restaurants without blanching in
embarrassment.  The warmly human gestures seen in the strangest 
places and times amidst the urban rudeness and jostle.  A 
musical tradition that reeks with emotion and feeling.  An 
insistence on doing things in person, even if it means 
abruptness at telephone inquiries and a maddening persistence 
that the simplest things, from finding decent books to buying 
Athens Festival tickets, be done in the city centre.
It would take a cold heart not to see the human dimension 
insistently at work in all this, despite all the frustration 
it brings.  So as we disappear to recharge our batteries, 
there is some comfort in the thought that we are doing the 
best we can, most of the time, in this strange experience of 
life, for which we had too little preparation and in which 
second chances are rare.  As we curse the other drivers, the 
island crowds and the screaming brats ruining our precious 
few days of rest, let us remember that, in the end and at 
some level, they are part of us, and we, part of them.