What makes you proud to be human? in anticlimatic

I used to have a lot of pride in humanity and in being human, but it’s been a long while since I have felt it for some reason. Prior to Covid maybe, or 9/11. It’s a hard feeling to map, chronologically. The lines are drawn fat and fuzzy. I just know that I used to feel it, in spades, and it was spectacular.

These days I feel overstimulated with things that do not make me proud of humanity. Displays of weakness. Selfishness. Arrogance. All the things I have spent a lifetime seeking to conquer within myself, everywhere, all the time. Is it just my personal misfortune? Or are these things everyone fights to conquer within themselves? Have people simply ceased to bother?

It’s the fight that I most admire in people. Don’t confuse that with abuse- like in the case of a violent bully. Bullying is ‘punching down,’ so to speak- but when I speak of “fighting,” I mean ‘punching up,’ or at worst ‘across.’ The biggest and most important fight we undertake is the one with ourselves, I firmly believe that. It’s the results of that fight that determine the nature of your other fights- if they happen at all.

Possessing courage is to fight yourself. Possessing generosity is to fight yourself. Displays of these struggles make me proud to be human. Loyalty. Honor. When did we quit telling these stories? They say humans are a narrative driven species. What happened to ours?