Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Tag: mindfulness Page 7 of 10

Children Matter. Period.

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On February 20, 2016

In Armchair Mayor Column, Environment, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood

Originally published as a column in NewsKamloops on Friday, February 19, 2016. 

momentsThere is nothing scarier or more upsetting for a parent than to feel helpless as he or she watch their child struggle with something they do not have the key to solve.

Last night found me wrestling thoughts of helplessness as I laid next to my youngest whose asthma flared up again a couple of days ago after a long dormancy. His breathing was my worry metronome.

Yes, for a while it did not bother him. As much as I would like to say that I almost forget it exists, that is not the case.

Whenever I pass by the hospital I think of it, whenever I see a cat I think of it (yes, it is cat-triggered yet ever new episode makes us wonder whether other allergens will become dreadful asthma triggers as well), and though I am not a pessimist by nature, the memory of his raspy breaths can easily demolish the earnest smile I could muster on a good day.

Something switches forever inside one’s heart when their child is born. You can’t quite identify it to put it in proper words but the short of it is ‘I’ll do anything to keep you alive and thriving’. And then, every now and then, we are put to test.

It’s humbling to realize how powerless we are when that happens. We turn to prayers and hope-building thoughts, we toss in our beds and renew the promise ‘whatever it takes’ and then we don’t let go, no matter what.

In my experience, the most important thing that happens when such occurrences bring us to our knees is to know that you are not alone. Many people are though and that is something no one should hide, but expose so it will not happen again.

As we went through a day of whizzing and monitoring the little guy, reaching for the puffer when needed, my thoughts traveled, as they often do, to all parents out there to struggle with not knowing what the future holds. We really are in this together.

There are degrees of uncertainty, as many as there are affections. There is though that common denominator that joins all parents: the worrying, the occasional relief just to get your strength back, the never-ending hope and the knowledge of how vital it is to not be alone as you face it all.

While some serious health problems occur just because and the cause is almost impossible to pinpoint, hence we resort to saying ‘genetic causes’ and leave it at that, while still not giving up the fight, others are avoidable and, worst of all, caused by human action. Irresponsible action that is. And that is simply unforgivable. That is something we need to know about, act upon and learn from.

Case in point number one: Flint, Michigan. If you’ve been reading the news about the town of almost 100,000 where people have been drinking lead-laden water for long enough to face serious health consequences, it is hard not to be horrified when you think of the dreadful reality that the parents of those thousands of children are facing.

Someone, somewhere (and it is not hard to know where as inquiries take place) decided to save money while putting people at risk. As always with any risks we take when it comes to a population group, the most affected will be children. Their small growing bodies can only take so much, and many of the consequences are irreversible.

Lead poisoning is one of them. Even small amounts can wreak havoc with a child’s body (with an adult’s too but the scale is different and for the scope of this column I choose to focus on children’s issues) causing irreversible damage. Ditto for unborn children.

A case that should serve as a reminder that our children are vulnerable and though resilience is one of their stellar qualities, they can only do so much when their health is becoming the subject of a Russian roulette game played by people who have the power to make decisions.

Case in point number two. The hydrocephalic babies born lately in Brazil and other areas of South America where a GM mosquito species resides and is being thought to spread the Zika virus, which many scientists believe to be causing the birth defects observed recently. Some environmentalists’ groups point to a pesticide called pyroproxyfen which was sprayed in order to kill the mosquito larvae in some areas as the culprit.

The answers are still not in, the debates are still raging. The reality that mothers of babies born with severe birth defects – many of them with limited access to funds that would help them care for their babies as they grow and face innumerable challenges – is a hard one to fathom. And the actual one they are left with.

The two cases and so many more remind me of these things: with our actions today we influence the fate of our children and their children. In how we plan our life and theirs we can make choices that honour the role we were given, as their protectors, to the best of our ability, and their defenders, in face of those who attempt to make bad choices.

It’s coming down to this: as much as we can, in raising our children – and the Earth village are all included here – we have to give it all. We have to keep our actions in line with the promise that matched the love we felt when we first laid eyes on our children.

Whether it pertains to digging mines or building pipelines, or to allowing the quality of air to increase as sales of new cars soar, there is but one way to do it right: the health of people comes first, children first of all.

In everything that we do at the community level, city and planet, we have to be mindful. Sometimes we really only have one shot to make it right. For them, for their future, for honouring ourselves and those who once cared the same for us.

On Being Present. Sights and Sounds

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On February 9, 2016

In Armchair Mayor Column, Learning, Life Stories

The early morning sun looks lost in a pile of low-lying clouds when I step outside for a run. This is the Coast, Victoria to be precise, and us living two blocks from the ocean for the four days we’re here is a treat.

The sidewalk is slippery and the light fog tastes fresh. Except for seagulls and the occasional car passing by, there is no sound. There is so much to see though which is why any louder sounds would be too much. I am as present as I can be and yet turned inwards, having the two worlds immerse in each other. I am part of both.

I run along the wooden fence guarding the trails, separating walking from flying and land from sea. A crow picks at a shiny wrapper for crumbs. She looks at me; I cannot pass without saying ‘hello’ and after one more gaze, she returns to the wrapper.

People walk, some walk with dogs and some without. A couple of the elderly people say good morning with a smile and I say good morning back. The young people look sideways as we pass by each other or they stare straight ahead without any intention to greet. Perhaps the older folk know the value of sharing the space life afforded us all. We’re never alone yet we are. Aloofness hurts the morning but I cannot allow that.

I make a note to greet people. I do most of the time and it feels right. Space shared, presence. Honouring ourselves and each other as we go.

Another crow, black slick feathers gleaning early morning sun rays. I say hello back after he crows at me from his wooden perch the sun picks moisture out of. Morning mysteries. We are not alone. This moment will not come back and I honour it by being present. Two of us are present: the crow and I. I keep on running.

A few steps ahead, a lady stops to photograph an orange bird up in a tree. At the bottom of the tree another crow. Feet lost in dewy grass, no chance of becoming a photographer’s dream subject this morning, it watches people and I cannot not tilt my head in a subtle salute as we exchange a gaze. A measure of presence, a different kind of language, same understanding of life unfolding. It feels like it anyway.

I run down the steps to the small cove I visited yesterday where a slightly wilted pink azalea lays on a fuzzy-surface log. The constant ocean mist keeps it from drying off completely. Alive when you’re not, infused with colour still, adding to a world that is what it is because everything, from insignificant to vital adds to it. You add to it; colours, sounds, whispers, awe for what the day is. Every day.

I breathe, I sift through pebbles for a few seconds, I almost pick up a few white shiny ones, but then I place them on a small log instead. Till tomorrow. I think of the crows that see shiny things and pick them up. I see white shiny pebbles and I pick them up. I smile. Common denominators are uplifting. Life does not come with categories, but with allowing ourselves to keep on being fascinated.

I think of the poem* I read this morning sipping lukewarm coffee.

The sun is now shining victoriously. Its morning wrestle with the clouds is over. I carry sunshine on my back as I make my way up the stairs, back on the trail, homebound. Magic is never complicated.

A bird chirps from a bush. I spot it, I say hello and we both move on. There are calendula flowers in a flower bed; I think of the ones I grow at home, the suns I make into oils and potions, combining worlds.

The last crow I see before I walk inside back to sleepy boys pushes a flattened aluminum can off the sidewalk. I feel embarrassed for the garbage we humans leave behind. The can is not shiny but sorry-looking and the crow accepts it as part of its world. We do too. We encroach, we leave marks, we make it about us too much.

It’s about everything at all times. About seeing, about being present, not to lessen the sparkle but add to it, understanding how everything tumbles until the tumbling stops. Nothing is forever, yet forever is made of days like this.

We add steps on in front of each other, a glance into curious eyes, we say hello in the languages we knows, occasionally forgetting that gazes are just as powerful, ignoring the hello that comes back from worlds intersecting ours. It’s there if we’re there to see it. Here.

Good morning.

 

*’More rapacious than us, more needy.

They never take the shortest route

and use too many words when a caw would do.

Their hearts work like ours, but theirs are bitter

in our beaks. Even snow can’t take away the taste.

They’re too simple to grasp there is an end to everything.

They don’t know their shadows have blood in them.

They don’t know their souls build nests of sticks

to hold the shiny things they can’t get by without.

O, what the marrow of the wind could teach them,

The river’s gizzard, the deer’s blue lips and tongue.

Until they’re ready, we won’t let them

hear our songs.’

(Lorna Crozier, ‘Crow’s take on man’)

The Gift Of Now. To Build On

By

On January 23, 2016

In Armchair Mayor Column, Learning, Life Stories, Self-improvement, Social issues

Originally published as a column in NewsKamloops on Friday, January 22, 2016. 

farewellsThere’s always a bit of a dilemma in my head about what to choose for a column topic. This week’s could’ve broached on many subjects: the recent statistic about homeless veterans (about 2,250 of them) as an unacceptable but sad reality, or the fact that many Indigenous communities in Canada still struggle with deplorable living conditions, or that the incidents of suicide, teenagers and children included, in many of those communities, is shockingly high. Or that we still do not have tough enough laws to address drunk driving, which often means that people, often children, get killed, and few of the guilty ones get jail time.

After some thinking I came to realize that they all have a common denominator. Human life and how precious it is, so we’d be well advised to stop a moment longer and let that sink in. Every time I find myself thinking about it I come out richer and humbler. And I take an extra moment for the night hugs I give my sons or add extra smiles and time to share with those I love.

Opportunities never lack; it’s but a matter of reminding ourselves to slow down to see them. Unless life does it for us abruptly, in which case we’re forced to stop and take a deep breath before we pick up the pace again. That comes with regret though.

During my family’s recent trip to my hometown in Romania we took a walk through the downtown area, which holds so many memories of times past. Like the time when an old guy was selling bunnies at the farmer’s market and enough pleas made my mom yield.

I carried my bunny home with a few stopovers in stores where I carefully hid the wee bundle of fur in the cradle of my elbow. My mom’s accomplice smile was nothing short of a gift, a memory just the two of us held from then on… The memory of fuzzy, innocent days when everything seemed to be possible and infinite.

That was then. This time, my stop at the farmer’s market was to get wreaths and candles.

The four of us then made our way up the hill where I grew up and from there to the cemetery. We lit candles and laid wreaths for my parents, for all my grandparents, for aunt and uncle and one of my cousins, and for my godparents too.

That the sky was rather grey and heavy is not important, or relevant. For once, the sun could do nothing to cheer me on. There is nothing more sobering than standing by my parents’ grave to put things in perspective. Life and death tied in a braid that none of us can unravel.

I learned that early enough when I lost my grandparents. The story repeats in my heart and mind every time someone I know and love bids goodbye to the world we know.

That’s when everything becomes relevant and, at the same time, relevant only if we choose to make it so. Occasions like the ones where you stand and read the names on a tombstone, feeling every letter with the fingers of your soul, soft and unprepared still, teary… Reading names of people that life tucked away too soon.

For years I tried to understand what’s to understand from losing my precious people so early on. There is a lot. It’s a trade you see. We lose people but are given awareness in return. There are people to love still alive, there are people to know, there is still time to make a difference.

We are being given the gift of knowing that each step we take should not be for nothing, should not be unkind, should not be wasted on dismissing life as a gift, or the present as the same. The gift of people while they still are. I know that much.

Hence the common denominator of at least the topics enumerated above. Choosing to make a difference in the world we know, be it a word, a smile, a gift of time, presence, a helping hand when most needed… In doing that, we acknowledge the fragility and preciousness of now, and we have opportunities to build on it the tomorrow that will matter.

We only make sense as many, though it is as individuals that we make that shine true. While we have time. While those who can benefit from it are still around, and while the world as we know it exists.

Things I’ve Learned. Happy New Year!

By

On December 31, 2015

In Learning, Life Stories, Self-improvement

StubbornIt is almost New Year’s Eve and winter has somewhat caught up with us bringing frozen sunny mornings to our doorstep.

It is eerily humbling to be waiting for winter the way it once was in a place that is never going to be the way it once was… People and places change in the bitter sweet dance of time, and no matter how stubborn, we are all twirling like snowflakes in a snow storm, landing where we least expected and poised (if we make it so) to make the best of it.

The year comes to an end. It’s always with a bit of regret that I look back, choosing to see mostly the things I’ll leave behind forever. This time though I want to hum the better song as I walk along. The things I’ve learned, the ones I take with, the ones that make me better, or so I feel.

Lost and foundIt’s a matter of making peace with yourself and life. Not crying over what cannot be changed. The prayer comes to mind, the one I so often saw as difficult to accomplish when changes made me bend under their implacable weight and what was left of me was no more than a twig seemingly breakable by the first gust of wind. It’s never like that though…

Now I know…

 

That the worst of days has, like the happiest, has only 24 hours that it can howl at me. That is, at best, a ladder with 24 rungs that I leave behind one after another as I climb towards a better day.

That if I need someone to tell me I can do it or hold my hand (or heart) as I do it, all I have to do is ask. That might be one of the hardest things to do, which is why it is one of the biggest gift someone can give. It’s the give-get thing. An unsinkable truth of life indeed.

That we are solely able to steer off courses that take us to where we do not want to go. All we have to do is stop, breathe, and have the courage to look around, asking loud enough ‘Is this where I want to be?’ If not, why dawdle? Of all the 24 rungs we climb, if there is at least one left, we can make it a day.

That when I smile, everything gets better. That someone will smile back. It’s never to be taken for granted. Or forgotten. The world is a smile better when we make it so. It’s a matter of will. And courage to be vulnerable enough to let yourself be seen. Smiling. Crying. It’s the same face that does it, the same heart that powers both.

That there is a gift of calmness in a crumpled leaf that I will never find anywhere else. When you step outside and pick one up, it will tell you stories of life and death, of the inexorable nature of seasons, of being just a wee song in the large orchestra that would sound different, even in an imperceptible way, if you were not there.

That I can get lost in a sea of others, but I am still my own. When you are, you are your own colour to a world that you joined as unique once upon a time. Add your own, believe that you can.

SeeThat I am able to see. With me eyes, with my heart, with my hands in the dark. As long as the mind is open to it.

That clouds are lessons, so big that only a sky could hold them all. Like you or I, they speak time, except that they seem to explain it better. Things come and go, nothing stays forever. Of course I know that. And just like that, of course I pretend to forget. Because it is both soothing and scary, a flavour that we have to learn to use as we go so that each bite becomes a gift. If each bite is to become a gift.

That when I open my arms for a hug, someone will fall in there, soft-hearted and eager, and will emerge feeling worthy. Because of that hug. Which I could give because I know the taste of it. Because someone, somewhere, had gifted me the same.

That seeing the sunrise is as precious as being born. Every day, another chance to make it better. There are 365 sunrises a year. Every year.

BeautyThat having my children call the most urgent ‘Mom, come see the sky!’ means that sunsets are reminders of shared life, love and the wonder of a world we get to see once more through the eyes of those who never hold back unless we make them think they should. Which is a sin.

 

 

to beThat precious is not a word for diamonds, or things made to be expensive. It is what defines morning walks with my sons, their arms wrapped around my neck at night, or the four of us waking up by a lake, soft whispers infusing the emerald air and having us know that as long as we can see that together we are on the side of life where we should be.

That speaking of life not just as you see it but as you feel it is a must. Vulnerability makes us stronger.

That’s how much I’ve learned this year, that’s what I’m taking with me to the next. To build on. To learn of so much more.

LightsHappy New Year!

So This Is Christmas…

By

On December 25, 2015

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Learning, Self-improvement, Social issues

Originally published as a column in NewsKamloops on December 25, 2015.

20151202_134554_001It is Christmas Eve and the four of us are tucked deep into the heart of Transylvania celebrating the winter holidays with family. Whether we travel or stay at home, this time a year is when we journey to a place that is always different no matter how much we repeat the rituals from year to year in an effort to make it just like the last one.

The thing is, try as we might, it is never the same. It could never be… With each year, I realize that it is not about the gifts but the presence we offer as we approach the day. Presence in more than one way.

It is about giving ourselves to serve others as much as we can, to be kind beyond expectations or at least to match them, to think of those who do not come close to joy because life throws them one too many curve balls, to be grateful not because we have what we want but to be grateful as we say ‘I have what I need’ because, in truth, many of us do.

It is never about material gifts.

The increased need for kindness in our immediate surroundings and beyond is evident. Times are rushed and pressing us into individual corners where we feel isolated and unhappy for it. Fighting back by reaching out seems counterintuitive yet it is not.

This is the time when we should evaluate our presence. In our family with those still present (as much as we believe in happy ever after, eternity is simply not a built-in feature of humans or anything alive for that matter), in our community in how we give time and help financially and otherwise, in what we leave behind as we move into tomorrow.

Since the boys have been born, we have spent many a Christmas time with my family whether in Europe or Canada. My Mom and Dad were there for some but not anymore. One could say that we are poorer with each Christmas as we leave behind slices of life that will never return as such and people who smile back from photos only. The gift that matters is that we once spent time together.

But then again, it is not about what we do not have any more but about what stays with; it is about how we grow from there. Christmas is, in truth, albeit not exclusively, a time of evaluating. In doing so we should go beyond the personal sphere and go far enough to see the bigger picture of our common ground.

This year, more than ever before, it became clear that we need to do so. As a country, we are fortunate to be on the side of those who can help (we can choose to while withholding judgment), just like we are also fortunate to have the kind of leadership that allows us to rewrite the story of our global presence. Gifts of social conscience to be precise.

As individuals we can make choices: to care more, to care enough to make a difference in someone’s life, to show our human side more often even if that means simply smiling to those we meet on our daily path.

During a recent beach stroll in Vancouver, I came across a bench carrying words that reminded me of my parents, my husband, my sons, and the rest of my family, including my close friends. It was about presence, about time, about realizing that we are shaped by what touches our heart.

‘Sometimes love is for a moment, sometimes love is for a lifetime. Sometimes a moment is a lifetime. May this place reminds us how precious life is.’ I would add; ‘may this day and all that follow remind us of the same. May that we not forget between now and the time we need to show it or remember it ourselves.’

Meaningful gifts are those that last long after the wrappings are crumpled up and the thrill of yet another object is lost from memory. It is perhaps the absence of material gifts that make us most aware of what’s really important.

It is when we make room for presence without any material strings attached that we can understand the ephemeral nature of today, Christmas day included. It is when we make room to remember that presence is where we show up many sunrises and sunsets past Christmas, no fancy duds, just as we are, hearts full as they are on the day defined by giving. In truth, every day should be shaped that way.

May your Christmas be an opportunity for gifts that will keep on growing and giving, and for presence that you can find and offer kind and warm each day from now until the next Christmas comes along. By then we will be wiser and even more mindful of life’s fragility and our immense responsibility to make our gifts, given and received, last. Merry Christmas!

Snow Falling On Growing Boys. Worthiness

By

On November 18, 2015

In Life Stories, Motherhood

Upon waking, a child’s face is sweetly scrunched up and bearing the dreamy gaze of recently peeled-off sleep. A flavour like no other. Another thing to miss down the road, another song that will keep on pouring notes into my mornings long after the boys will have grown up.

I woke up early today because the room was lit white. Snow! That heart flutter never changes. You wake up knowing something is different, a whisper of winter lays on your eyelids and you can’t remember where but you’ve seen it before… so many first-snow mornings that I left behind in the house I grew up in. The muffled sounds of my parents in the kitchen, the glow in the room, the warm covers… I savoured it every time.

Before waking up little boy I press my face against the window and look outside.

The backyard is white, and trees are again the standing candles that make me forget that beyond them is a busy road. All is muffled now. Roads no more, only the ones to my childhood and back, taking thoughts of now into then and the other way around.

simpleThe magic of the first snow, the extra blink you put yourself through just to make sure you’re not dreaming still… The white story floating all over the room, that room, this room. Time never stands still.

I wake up little boy and pull up the blinds… Little boy’s face explodes with surprise and he hides under the covers and then out again. Snow! ‘Can we build a snow shelter?’

We will. Breakfast? No one’s hungry. ‘We can eat snow.’ Indeed. Snowflakes twirl and dance with the wind, and we step outside to dance too.

Just us and a world of white. Big boy is out in the woods, winter camping with Max. A first. Celebrating boyhood and laughter among trees and sitting around a fire that can never be too long-lived. Growing boys sharing their magic with us, allowing us to peek into their joy, into their worries and silliness, allowing us to see them. It’s a two way mirror, if we work to keep it so.

‘Can we make it this tall, mama? I want to be able to sit inside.’

lil boy happyWe carry armloads of snow and pile them into the emerging walls of the shelter. I carry the big loads, little boy patches up the walls. There are magpies and crows watching us, there’s the dog next door that has yet to learn the benefits of familiarity and friendliness and his incessant barking makes us laugh.

I am privileged. To be building shelters, to be soaking in hugs and snuggles every morning and night, to have my boys learning alongside, to never think ‘enough’… Snow would not be the same without giggles and groans over crumbling snow.

The snowfall grows thicker. This is what matters. Presence. Through that, my boys hear the one thing worth repeating: You’re worth it. Being here is enough.

These days it’s about taking a breath in when you can. It’s about taking long enough to see the magpies dig in the fresh snow and admire their gracious gliding from the low bransides of lifeches of our backyard pine. It’s about wondering what they think as they do that and see us play in the snow. It’s about allowing children to never rush out of a moment that has much to impart to their lives and ours.

We leave behind a week full of grief and things worth knowing.

Before Remembrance Day the boys learned about wars. There’s much to learn. Way beyond facts and figures, we learn about people who become the facts and figures. People like us, the boys say. It is never about glorifying wars, it’s about honouring people and understanding that their sacrifice should count towards making a commitment to kindness.

It’s always easy to say it. Be kind. To do takes more. To do makes the commitment real.

‘Why do people create war? It’s so wrong!’ There is fault in wanting too much power, there is fault in oppression and there is fault in not admitting that violent action begets more violence in places where hatred is allowed to live.

Come the end of the week, terrorist attacks brought Beirut and Paris into a state of chaos and brought the big unresolved question back: Why? What makes people do that? The list of people to remember grows by the day.

Committing to kindness is the only thing I can ask the boys to do.

I commit to gratefulness for being able to savour moments that have boys and trees and snow and birds in them, moments when I hear laughter and I do not have to fear that it might disappear the next moment.

We need to find our way back. It’s through raising children to think kindly, to never forget about the wonder of the world, to see worthiness and be humble about it all.

worldsSnow dresses the world in white for now and that brings hope. The shelter has tall enough walls for little boy to sit and we’re going to find a cover for it. We hear voices and see smiling faces. Max and Tony are back. They carry last night’s campfire smoke on their cheeks and their eyes glow with the cheeriness of an adventure that added to the magic of first snow…

‘Mom, the snow is so deep up there, it’s so beautiful!’

It is just this. The moment we’re in. It’s where we come as we are.

The Human Element Better Stay

By

On November 2, 2015

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Social issues

Initially published as a column in NewsKamloops on Friday October 30, 2015.

SignsLast Saturday was a lazy one with lots of snuggling and reading in bed with my youngest and a pancake breakfast that made our late morning both forgivable and pleasant.

Because of that, farmer’s market became a late affair. I visited my usual spots and filled my backpack with colours and crispness. All fall bounty in one heap, minus one preferred treat: watermelon radish. I am not sure if it is the intense fuchsia colour in the middle bordered by a layer of green on the outside that makes it appealing to my boys, but it was love at first sight and taste too. They ask for it every Saturday.

So I asked the smiling merchant about it. There had been a few but they’re all gone, she said. Sigh. Ah, missed! A guy who looked like her father or father-in-law got up from where he was sitting behind the table. ‘Here, take this!’. He handed me the last half of a watermelon radish that was saved in what looked like a lunch box.

‘Are you sure?’ They both smiled and said yes. Not much more I could do other than smile and say thank you. And another thank you as I left the market. The incident added some extra sparkling to the already bright morning I was immersed in.

Half a radish is no grand treasure but the gesture is priceless and adds to the warm feeling I associate with the market. A community is no community unless you know the people in it and the threads of your life braid with theirs as you go through life.

The human element that the farmer’s market is infused with is what makes me steer away from self-checkouts in big stores, and also opt, whenever possible, for the small local stores where smiles and a small chat are never too far. (Yes, a year-round farmer’s market would be a lovely local affair.)

The argument that we reduce waiting time by using checkout machines because they add speed and efficiency to our hurried lives does not persuade me in the least, just like self-driving cars not only don’t impress me but they actually make me shudder. The missing human element is something I cannot make peace with.

In the age of increased virtual ‘connections’ and automated devices that speed up life and unequivocally impart the conveyor belt feeling to so many of our activities, letting go of the human element might just be that one mistake we cannot afford to make, lest we should be stepping too far off the beaten path where familiarity comes from communicating with another human being and seeing other human beings around as we carry on with our day.

Also, as population increases, it would make sense to have not fewer but more jobs that even though they could be done by machines at the benefit of a few humans, they should be done by humans and benefiting more than just a few.

Having just learned that 50 percent of the world’s wealth belongs to a mere 1 percent of the world’s population (how is that for scary math?) maintaining the human element wherever we can becomes a must.

Creating jobs whenever possible and having them filled by people rather than machines can help fill the gaps that life often creates just because …life happens. When you are having an off day and nothing seems to do, it is often the unexpected smile from another human, a familiar face or not, that can brighten perspective and add a sliver of goodness.

There is no replacement for smiles, and no replacement for the human touch behind so many activities we perform throughout the day.

Which is why having more of each other’s presence makes life better. Well before human babies learn to talk, they are able to recognize and rejoice at seeing human faces.

As they grow, children need human interaction in order to develop harmoniously through the attachment bonds those interactions enable. Children learn best when human interaction is part of the learning process. No five-star computer program can replace a Saturday morning snuggle and read, just like no machine can wipe tears and hug us better, no matter how many positive reviews it has on Amazon.

No machine can ever inspire a human towards lofty goals or create the joy that an unexpected and much needed smile or kind word can bring. It is vital that we remember that.

It is only natural. We have been, are and will always be sentient beings who are complete – whether we admit it or not – by having relationships and by interacting with each other. The fact that we punctuate the important things in life by attaching faces to them and the fact that we need the human element is because life becomes meaningful when other humans are in it.

As for the cars that drive themselves, nothing can convince me that we need them. The last thing we need is to use our senses less. Being present where you are when you are there is not a chore but life itself, happening as we blink our way through it. And yes, a blink is all, so why not be there to live it fully?

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