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By Noah TilleryIt truly is a unique time. As we try to adapt to this new but temporary way of life, it becomes easier and easier to forget ourselves and fall prey to the violent currents of unprecedented change. If we wish to retain our sanity and happiness, and I think we all do, we cannot let this happen. We cannot become victims. And so, in an attempt to keep calm and reclaim our lives, I ask that you remember to be human.
Now is the perfect time to return back to our normalcy in its original sense. I encourage us to go outside, to touch and hold and smell the dirt from which we came; to breathe the air that our lungs were designed to process; to watch the beasts over which we have dominion, observe their loftiness and their casualness, and note and appreciate their expertise of the ground on which they walk and the skies which they navigate; take the time to be alone as Adam first was, to think for yourselves without The Man on the Screen telling you about it--in fact, let us forget about that Man altogether; to enjoy the companion or companions that you have found yourself with during these times, talk to them with purpose or with no purpose at all--talk for the sake of conversation; to walk with no destination in mind, write without knowing where the first period will fall, read without knowing which page is the last; to turn off everything except our minds.
Undeniably we live in an uneasy if not down-right frightening time. But allowing ourselves to become victims of uncertainty and fear, doubt and depression, worry and regret, will do nothing to further our cause. Now, and forever afterwards, we must remember to be kind, helpful, gentle, and loving. We must remember to be human.
Noah Tillery, of McKee, Ky., is a member of the McConnell Scholar Class of 2023. He studies political science, history and religious studies at the University of Louisville.