What continues to surprise you about being human?

I invite you to partake of more wisdom today from this bountiful table of Substack writers, my daughters and friends as we grapple with the question: What about being human continues to surprise you?

Dear friends,

I am wishing everyone who celebrates a peaceful Thanksgiving today.

Welcome back to our virtual Thanksgiving table, joined by these luminaries among my Substack writer friends: Allison Deraney of DARE TO BE, Nan Tepper of The Next Write Thing, Aimee Liu of Aimee Liu's MFA Lore, Victoria of Carer Mentor: Empathy & Inspiration, Louisa Wah of Lily Pond, Jocelyn Lovelle of Hello Beautifuls, Jennifer Bridgman of The Mess + The Magic, Deb Blum of Sacred Second Half, Rosemary Writes & Recovers, Nicole Terrell of Fully Expressed and my eldest daughter Marielle Velander who writes The Adventure Agenda.

Complementing our table is my younger daughter Sara, my friend Kristin Pedemonti, narrative therapy practitioner and storyteller, and my friend and writer April Streeter.

Inspired by the poet Mark Nepo in The Book of Awakening, I asked my guest contributors two questions. The first: What is it about being human that you are most grateful for? we answered Tuesday, published here. If you need inspiration on what makes us grateful in our shared humanity, these responses will do it.

Today we turn our collective wisdom to this question: What is about being human that continues to surprise you?

Some of us were surprised by humanity in ways that delighted and amazed us and gave us hope. Others were surprised by human beings in ways that disappointed them. And yet that assessment didn’t leave them devoid of hope. It simply called for a recalibration, recognizing that not all surprises from humans are good ones. And in turn we may continue to surprise ourselves in how we respond to human nature, in its goodness as well as its selfishness and weakness, its pride and greed and desire to subjugate humans that others consider lesser beings. I recently watched the wonderful and powerful movie “Wicked,” wickedly good in revealing this underbelly of human surprise—in that it is good and bad. It is all the things).

On what surprises us most about being human

Here’s what most surprises me: Human resilience. Mine and yours. The hope in the human spirit that persists, even in the most desperate and sorrowful of times. I have seen the embers of hope flicker in me and others when circumstances conspire to crush us. This resilience continues to surprise me and amaze me and comfort me. I know that I will rise again because of all the times I’ve fallen and picked myself up again. All the times I’ve been sad or unseen, lost or uncertain. The times I’ve flailed in the emotional quicksand of making choices for myself that I knew would hurt another. The times grief swept me up in a riptide when someone I loved died. Each of those times the fall was so deep I didn’t know if I could recover my innate sense of delight and joy in the gift of being alive in this world. And yet I did, as so many humans have across the eons. We tremble, we stagger and, somehow, we find the resilience to fly again.

Photo by Klares Vincent on Unsplash

And so we share around our virtual table, humans who want to be surprised:

Nicole: “I am always blown away at how adaptable we are when we allow our previous notions about the way things ‘should’ be to be challenged. When we see new ways of being and doing things, we expand our worldview and we adapt, and I think that is incredible.”

Victoria: “I’m most grateful for and surprised at how, over the years, my emotional endurance has grown. It’s not grit endurance that made me succeed at work, or continue caregiving. I empowered myself and leaned into curiosity. Humans have an immeasurable capacity to adapt and grow when we’re curious, open and especially when we’re driven by love/passion (something/someone). I was motivated by love—for my parents and myself. I knew I had to survive beyond them, there’s so much LIFE I want to experience.”

April: “What surprises and delights me about humans is the capacity, and really this possibility that we have for community. As sad and desperate as the world can seem, there is also a real sensation that we are moving to a greater consciousness that can hold our individual experiences while also moving us to be more aware and active in seeking planetary (maybe even universal?) well-being. When written that's a little abstract, I know. But when you find and work together with your own chosen groups of humans, you can feel the truth of it.”

Nan: “My unending curiosity, primarily. The beauty of the human mind and heart. The power of words and how they influence me, and stay with me, and fuel my life. And the healing power of laughter and tears.”

Allison: “What continues to surprise me is that joy and sorrow are companions. Whenever I experience pain or witness another’s burden, right behind it, trotting along is a person or a moment, a song, or a memory that reminds me that pain is actually taking our vitals the whole time. And we will be more alive for having let it pass through us.”

Aimee: “We are never truly alone. We can feel so desperately lonely, unique, misunderstood, helpless, and frustrated, yet when we tell our stories and share our confidences, we inevitably discover that others share our woes and understand us far better than we imagined. This comfort of company in the human condition is an abiding source of solace and encouragement for me. It can also be a source of power, if we’d just allow ourselves to harness it!”

Rosemary: “As I live past my midlife years and enter my third third of life, I continue to be surprised at just how deep the longing for love is, no matter how old I get. Inside every older person is a young child, longing for acceptance, approval, and love. I continue to be surprised that deep feelings of longing, love, loneliness and heartbreak are not, as Hollywood might have us believe, afflictions only reserved for the young, but are ongoing human desires and feelings that have no age limits.”

Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash

Louisa: What continues to surprise me about being human, is how bottomless our discovery of human nature can be. Much of my discovery of late has been the depth of deceit and lack of empathy in a much larger percentage of the population than I had imagined. This is simply the other end of the continuum of the human psyche. As long as I continue to make surprising discoveries about the human psyche, I will continue to be grateful for the hope that will never die.”

Kristin: “What most surprises me is the depth of selfishness of some people and how that can blind one to caring and to empathy for others.”

Deb: “The thing that continues to surprise me is how perfectly we humans have been designed so that we can see in other people that which we need to explore within ourselves. That our emotional triggers, judgments, blame, and pain are pointers to young places and parts within us guiding us to reclaim access to our unfelt feelings, disowned parts, unmet needs, and unprocessed fears so we can step more fully into the wholeness of who we are, love with a more open heart, and tap into more aliveness. I guess what surprises me most is that it’s always true. Every time I think…’nope, this time it’s not,’ I realize, yet again, that that the person or circumstance is, yet again, a mirror or messenger for me. It’s like magic once we understand how this process works and use it to guide us home to ourselves.”

Photo by Zachary Kadolph on Unsplash

Jennifer: “Pain is my teacher, pain is my friend. How very human of me to feel grateful and surprised by this discovery. Pain has taught me that a wall turned sideways can become a bridge. Pain has taught me that doorways to the light are always viewed from the darkest hallways. Pain has taught me that the bravest heart of all is the one that continues to beat on, steady and true, despite all the bruises, breaks and betrayals. Pain has taught me that obstacles are not detours but the path itself. Pain has taught me that the ones I trust most in this world are not those who have avoided suffering, but those who have learned to hold their pain gently with open palms, open minds and open hearts. Pain has taught me about true beauty, for it is not the unmarred ones who are the most beautiful but those with scars on their souls and stars in their eyes.”

Sara: “The human experience of consistently maturing, emotionally and physically. We encompass multiple different versions of ourselves at various stages of life, and each level of maturity brings so many lessons to be learned. The fact that we can always learn something new, even after accruing so much knowledge when reaching the later stages of life is something that surprises me. I always thought when I was younger that people at my current age (five days away from turning 30) had everything figured out, had all the answers. But in reality, one can be more lost at this age, still having a lot more experiences to live through to gain those essential life lessons.”

Amy, Marielle and Sara

Marielle: “I’m surprised by how things don’t go as planned and yet at the same time it feels like everything is exactly as it was meant to be. Life feels premeditated and spontaneous at the same time. Every moment that felt like a misstep, every choice that seemed at first (or in retrospect) like a mistake, inevitably in some small way led to my happiness today. As an inherent planner, I struggle when things don’t seem to go my way. This is a good lesson for me to trust the process of life. I need to recognize that even when plans get thrown out the window, the life I envision and dream of is still in the works.”

Jocelyn: “I am surprised at how lucky I am. How lucky my life has been. And I am often jolted into remembering this luck. Because often, the days seem endless and boring and repetitive and like nothing is happening, nothing is important or meaningful. And then one tiny thing will peek around the corner at me, or jump into my lap and I will remember, again, that it is almost always the small things, the boring things, the day to day that make up a life and those are the lucky things to be cherished, not hurried through. I am surprised how so many people can be thinking and feeling and experiencing being human in a way that is so similar to mine. And how so many people, when given the chance, can be gorgeous and generous and full of love and wisdom.”

Now it’s your turn! Share in the comments your answers to these questions. Let’s continue the conversation. This playlist might help inspire your answer.

Thank you, dear readers, for joining my Thanksgiving table. A heartfelt thanks to all the contributors to this week’s two-part essay series. I am so grateful to have you all in my life!
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