It's Hard Being Human
Staying human in an inhuman world.
Lately, I’ve been sitting with the weight of it all.
Not just my own - but the collective exhaustion that seems to hang in the air like thick fog. Maybe you’ve felt it too. Maybe you’ve looked around and thought, Is it just me, or does it feel harder to be human these days?
It’s not just you.
The friction of being alive.
Being human has always been a tender and terrifying thing. We carry history in our bones, grief in our lungs, hope in our hearts. We ache for love while fighting battles no one sees. We wake up to rising costs, overflowing inboxes, aging (or dying) parents, lonely mornings, sore backs, breakups, burnout, and a stream of notifications screaming for our attention. We’re anxious. We’re tired. And still - we try.
We hustle to belong. To be seen. To be enough.
But somewhere in this modern maze, we’ve started drifting.
As we enter June, I can’t help but feel the weight this month carries for me. It’s the time of year that reminds me of how fragile life truly is. I lost my father in June. I watched my mother, my anchor, fade slowly in a hospital bed, her strength slipping through my fingers like sand I couldn’t hold onto.
No lesson, no philosophy, no AI will ever fully prepare you for what it feels like to watch the people who made you slowly disappear. This is where I learned, not in theory but in agony, just how hard life can be. And yet - those moments carved out something in me: a deeper reverence for love, time, and the quiet resilience we all carry inside us.
Machines are getting smarter - but are we getting colder?
As AI sharpens its edge and machines learn to mimic our minds, it’s easy to start questioning our place in all of this. The lines blur between man and machine, between real and synthetic. Our value as humans - the messy, emotional, deeply irrational beings we are - feels under fire.
But here’s what I believe: now more than ever, we need to cling to our humanity.
Because no machine can hold your hand during a panic attack.
No algorithm can sit in silence and understand your pain.
No AI can look you in the eye, forgive you, and still choose to love you.
This isn’t just about technology.
It’s about how we respond to a world that’s growing colder, faster, more disconnected by the day. A world where digital efficiency is rewarded, and quiet suffering goes unseen. Where we scroll past tragedies, automate intimacy, and call it progress. We’re outsourcing our emotional labour, automating our thinking, and sometimes, losing sight of the very thing that makes us, us.
And as AI continues to stretch its reach - writing code (which directly impacts my ability to earn an income), generating art, conducting interviews, answering questions, even simulating empathy - it’s no wonder we start to ask: Where do I fit in? What does it mean to be human in a world that values machines more than meaning?
Here’s the truth: AI may replace capacity, but it will never replace connection.
It can mimic thought, but not wisdom.
It can generate words, but not presence.
It can replicate patterns, but not purpose.
AI can do a lot of things better, faster, cheaper - but it can’t be human. It can’t feel the heartbreak of a Sunday goodbye or the spark of a glance across the room. It can’t understand the sacred silence between two people who finally understand each other.
It can’t fall apart and find the courage to rebuild.
And yet, in our fear of becoming obsolete, many of us are abandoning our softness, our nuance, our depth - trying to compete with cold precision instead of doubling down on our warmth.
We’re in danger of becoming machine-like in our thinking - transactional, optimised, emotionally distant… just as machines are becoming more human-like in theirs. That’s the real crisis.
So we must resist… We must resist the urge to numb, to automate our souls, to scroll past pain.
We must stay messy, stay curious, stay open.
We must remember what it means to feel, to care, to show up - especially when it’s inconvenient, especially when it’s not profitable.
Because while this world may get harsher, more digitized, more “efficient” - we are not machines.
We’re stories. We’re contradictions. We’re imperfect, emotional, beautifully inconsistent beings.
And that is our power.
So while the world shifts and the future accelerates, anchor yourself in the slow, steady truth of your humanity. Don’t trade your heart for convenience. Don’t exchange your empathy for performance. We were never meant to be machines - we were meant to be each other’s lifelines!
“We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity.”
- Charlie Chaplin
We’re not meant to go at it alone.
Life is hard - period.
But life is unbearable when we do it alone.
So let’s put down our weapons - literal and metaphorical. Let’s stop looking for someone to blame, and instead ask, How can I help? Let’s reach for kindness before correctness. Empathy before ego. Connection before control.
Relationships are hard, yes. We argue. We misunderstand. We compete when we should collaborate. But conflict is not failure - it’s friction trying to birth understanding.
We need better tools - not sharper tongues.
We need deeper wells of compassion - not higher walls.
This week also brings Shavuot - the Jewish festival that marks the giving of the Torah (Bible to my non-Jewish audience) at Mount Sinai. It’s a moment that reminds us that being human isn’t just about survival - it’s about responsibility.
About choosing meaning. Choosing kindness. Choosing to hear the call to something higher than ourselves.
While AI may evolve at lightning speed, it will never carry moral weight. It won’t stand at Sinai. It won’t wrestle with the tension between justice and mercy.
We will. We always have.
And in this season - this deeply personal time for me - I’m reminded that the most sacred downloads we’ll ever receive aren’t made of code. They’re made of courage, compassion, and the courage to show up again and again, for ourselves and for each other.
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances,
but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
- Viktor E. Frankl
The moral… and the warning.
Let me leave you with this:
Don’t pour from an empty cup and call it generosity.
Taking care of others should never mean abandoning yourself.
Burnout doesn’t make you a hero. Self-neglect doesn’t make you more noble.
If you want to show up for others, you have to show up for yourself first. Rest is not a betrayal. Boundaries are not cruelty. You can be a refuge for someone else, but only after you’ve built shelter for your own soul.
So yes, it’s hard being human.
But it’s also miraculous.
Don’t let the noise steal the melody.
Don’t let the algorithms rob you of awe.
And no matter how tired you are - don’t forget to love.
Because at the end of the day, that’s what makes us human.
SK. 🩶