“At the end of the 20th century, I ceased to be a human being.”

Those are the words of songwriter Nick Cave, the intro to a docudrama he produced over a decade ago. It’s a wonder I remember anything from that film, though the onslaught of media was less incessant back then. Interesting ideas were easier to hold on to.

I didn’t understand his meaning at the time, any more than I understood my own humanity was on the verge of ceasing. Even now, there are fragments of my stone-age mind that hold on to the myth of my humanity, often fooling me for days.

It takes a heavy hammer to shatter such a deep-seeded myth. One may have to exert their body, put themselves in an uncomfortable environment, work extremely hard at the creation of something new, or suffer a loss. Occasionally, you encounter one who can dispel the myth by simply growing still, and breathing.

Pretend, if you will, that you yourself are no longer human. It’s a frightening concept, unless you consider the possibility that you never have been. Most of us can ponder a time when we felt most free, a time when the fibers of our body were unencumbered by the chains of identification with this or that identity. When we were everything and nothing at once.

When Jesus spoke of freedom, he didn’t point to humans as an example of which to aspire. He spoke of birds.
The older I get, the more I notice birds, especially those I see frolicking over water, as I struggle with my paddle, frustrated by gravity. I’ve never watched a group of birds and thought, I bet they’re so happy and proud to be birds.
I doubt they consider themselves birds at all.