With myself about my inability to hit “publish” instead of “save.”
I did write yesterday, but didn’t get to proofread what I wrote as many times as I wanted before feeling the need to pass out. What a wuss. I’ve backposted it for ease of reading. Here’s
NaBloPoMo, Day 5
I hate to be a downer, but I can’t go with the word I had planned for today in light of the horrific shootings that took place at Fort Hood. My thoughts and best wishes are with the families of the dead and wounded, as they mourn and seek answers about what happened today.
So my word of the day is humanity. Looking into the etymological roots of humanity leads to some interesting things.
Humanity had no etymological root listed in its Merriam-Webster’s definition, so I went to human. Human, the entry read, from the Middle-English humain, from the Latin homo. See more at homage. So I went.
Homage, from the Anglo-French omage or homage, from home man (a phrase meaning vassal), from the Latin homin or homo, akin to the Old English guma for human being, and the Latin humus for earth. See more at humble. So I went.
Humble, from the Latin humilis meaning low, from humus, akin to the Greek chthōn for earth.
Now, the fact that “humanity” ultimately finds its root with the very dirt could be, for some, a sign of our own incomprehensible insignificance. Humanity is low. Humanity is dirt; unclean, imperfect. Humanity produces those who turn on their comrades and destroy indiscriminately. It would be easy to be callous or flippant about this, as I’m sure many are and will be. Easy to say it’s just another pebble added to the horrid cairn of senseless violence and suffering humankind has built, to point out that several other more tragic things may have happened today that we’ll never hear about because those afflicted are poor or not white or in countries without oil or in the way of getting to their country’s oil.
When I learned humanity grew from the root word earth, I found that beautiful. To me, that said all humanity is from the earth, united and connected in spite of its worst efforts not to be. I’m still an optimist and an idealist, despite the evidence to be otherwise. Maybe I’m delusional.
I’m not religious person, but tonight I’ll sit and pay humble homage to those who lost their lives today. On a day when humanity showed its worst, I’d like to make my contribution to balancing that out. I can be wry or polemical another day. I’d rather be human today.
