How to be human

I was supposed to write a piece called “Ways to Unplug” and it was supposed to be pretty easy. For better or worse, I’ve been a little preoccupied with this topic for a while now. I’m that person deleting all her apps, reading The Power of Now or Amusing Ourselves to Death or Deep Work, or switching over to a Light Phone, or in a more serious phase, a landline. The general consensus is that I’m hard to reach, and while that’s not something I’m super proud of anymore I thought I could still offer some helpful tips for those who worry about their screen time or how alarmingly much they know about Pete Davidson’s dating life. But, ironically, during some recent extended time “unplugged” I realized I wanted to write a different piece. One that, actually, wasn’t so focused on the plug.

The thing is, there’s nothing inherently good or meaningful about disconnecting. I could be making friends or sniffing markers. So when I say I want to unplug, I might be implying a lot, but I'm not really saying anything at all. This point struck me the other day while watching a credit card commercial depicting a family on vacation – the script went something like: “we went on vacation. We totally disconnected! We didn’t even check our email!” They did not say, “we learned how to sail! And made friends with some local Italians!” Disconnecting itself seems to have become a sufficient goal. But given that digital connection is starting to shape every nook and cranny of our lives and the world that surrounds us, I can’t help but wonder how meaningful this online/offline framework really is anymore. 

It feels to me like, at this point, whether we’re looking at our computer or away from it, we should be hyper-focused on the exact same thing – how to be human. 

How to be human is not only the most meaningful lens through which to see the world, it’s also the most accurate. I am fundamentally not a computer, I am a human, but when I see my device as an extension of me, I run the risk of conflating the two and losing touch with the fundamental needs and realities of what it means to be human. Like, I have a body. A conscious mind. I need love. I feel. I suffer. I crave touch, connection, meaning. So when I approach the world every day, all of this should be very consciously at the center – whether I’m online or off. 

When I say I want to unplug, I think it’s just my vague way of speaking to these human needs. A way of saying – I want to be present with my immediate surroundings. To give my full attention to someone I love. To daydream, get lost, and feel at home in my body. It’s this need to connect to my senses and to others. The need to process thoughts and experiences and emotions at a pace that allows me to create meaning and understanding and compassion. 

But even if you completely understand everything I’m implying when I say I want to unplug, I’d still argue that there’s enormous value in saying what I really mean. Consider the difference in impact between these two questions: 

How can I be more human? vs. How can I be less computer? 

It’s a subtle shift in perspective, but the former offers me a more powerful and meaningful approach to the world, and it brings up all sorts of worthwhile questions. Like, does this thing I’m doing make me feel connected to others? Is it growing my understanding of human suffering? Is it growing my understanding of myself? Is it building compassion? Community? 

The other thing to consider is – how do we limit our understanding of ourselves when we rely on the language of technology to communicate? When we say things like “I need to unplug,” “my battery’s running low,” “download me on your weekend.” Or, a friend of mine was once told they needed to “upgrade their operating system” when they found themselves in disagreement with an acquaintance. What nuance, empathy, and fresh understanding do we miss out on when we mechanize ourselves in this way? 

It’s interesting that we still use this language because we’ve already proven that it doesn’t serve us. When the first computers came along, people began to think of the brain as a hard-wired “operating system,” but as our understanding of the brain evolved we saw that it’s endlessly malleable – more similar to plastic. So we weren’t as limited as this computer analogy had encouraged us to believe. The thing to remember now is that we still know so little about human consciousness – so as tempting as it is to try and turn it into something familiar and understandable, we run the risk of limiting our imagination and underselling our true human potential – at the exact time we most need to develop it.

In Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, he writes, “for every dollar and every minute we invest in improving artificial intelligence, it would be wise to invest a dollar and a minute in advancing human consciousness.” He argues that, as artificial intelligence improves we will come to rely on it for more and more of our decisions, and it will progressively know us better, in many ways, than we know ourselves. This being the case, whoever the flawed humans are that wield the power of this future AI will have enormous influence over us. But to pose this issue in a slightly less Dr. Evil way – do we think that, as a culture, we have a good enough understanding of our needs as conscious beings to use this kind of unprecedented power to our advantage? If the answer is no, then Harari writes, chillingly, “we will end up with downgraded humans misusing upgraded computers to wreak havoc on themselves and on the world.”

If you’re anything like me, then you need a solid reminder of your personal power as a human being after reading something like that. Which is why, after finishing “21 Lessons…” I picked up the 90s classic Tuesdays with Morrie which, despite being largely about death, made me feel incredibly inspired by my own fleeting existence. In case this book wasn’t part of your assigned reading in high school (it wasn’t for me) – it’s a memoir written by a middle-aged man named Mitch Albom who reconnects with his beloved college professor, Morrie, who, in the midst of dying from ALS shares his lessons for a meaningful life. At the root of every lesson is, basically, how to be human. 

Mitch doesn’t have a smartphone – it’s 1995 – but this isn’t helping him be more human because, well, capitalism is the real underlying framework that does little to encourage our humanity. When he reconnects with Morrie he’s caught up in the hustle, trying to accumulate money, work, accolades. So Morrie’s most basic questions make him squirm: “Have you found someone to share your heart with? Are you giving to your community? Are you at peace with yourself? Are you trying to be as human as you can be?”

I think maybe the reason I needed to write this piece is because some of these questions make me squirm a bit too. It’s like they live in a drawer in my brain labeled “obvious” that I’ve convinced myself doesn’t need much tending to. But in the last month or so I’ve been carrying “how to be human” around with me everywhere, giving it prime real estate on the main stage of my brain, and I like the influence it’s having over me. It doesn’t always point to things in my life that I’m proud of, but at least it’s pointing me toward something meaningful.

It’s not that I think this conversation around getting offline isn’t an important one. Taking an active approach to my relationship with technology has done a lot for me, and I’d love to get into that at some point. I’m just saying that these questions concerning how to be human should frame that conversation – it should be the starting point and compass. This approach allows us to challenge the ways that technology makes us feel less human, but *also* challenge the ways that not using it – in our modern, fast-changing world – can make us feel less human, too. For example, how does my general disdain for my iPhone get in the way of showing distant friends and family how much I care? How might I find a more balanced approach? 

I’m not totally sure yet. I just know that I want to be fully human, and I am interested in technology insomuch as it allows me to do that.

“Ways to Unplug” was supposed to be a listicle. Something with immediate takeaways that you could efficiently read (or potentially skim) and leave with an inflated feeling of self-betterment. It would have taken a lot less time and a lot less focus than this has (for both of us), so if you’re still here I just want to say thank you for giving me the space to explore. It’s very human of you. And it’s important to me that you leave here feeling good, and like it was time well spent. So I want to share one last thing from Tuesdays with Morrie – a description of how he filled his life – that I personally find a lot more inspiring than a listicle.

Morrie “had developed his own culture – long before he got sick. Discussion groups, walks with friends, dancing to his music in the Harvard Square church. He started a project called Greenhouse, where poor people could receive mental health services. He read books to find new ideas for his classes, visited with colleagues, kept up with old students, wrote letters to distant friends. He took more time eating and looking at nature and wasted no time in front of TV sitcoms… He had created a cocoon of human activities – conversation, interaction, affection – and it filled his life like an overflowing soup bowl.”

---