Why Stay Human

Stay Human was the first statement we made, and it is the one most likely to be misread. People hear it as a complaint about technology. It is not. I use the same tools everyone else uses, and most of them are good, and the version of this that says the past was better is both boring and false.

What the phrase is actually about is smaller and harder than that. Being present is a practice. Paying attention on purpose is a practice. Feeling something all the way through instead of moving on is a practice. None of them are positions you hold. They are things you do, and like anything you do, they get weaker when you stop doing them.

Practices do not disappear in a decision. They disappear in a hundred small substitutions, each one reasonable on its own. You read the reviews instead of deciding whether you liked it. You read the summary instead of the thing. You take the photograph instead of looking at what is in front of you. Every one of those is defensible. Together they add up to a life you observed rather than one you had.

That is the part worth naming, because nobody chooses to be less present. It happens by default, and default is the strongest force in anyone's day.

So Stay Human is not an instruction to reject anything. It is an invitation to notice the substitutions while they are happening, which is the only moment at which you can do anything about them.

Of the three words under the statement, remain real is the hardest, because real is not a feeling. It is a decision you make in public. Saying the thing you actually think, in the room, to the person, is real. Agreeing because agreeing is easier is not, however sincerely you agree with yourself afterwards.

I do not think this is a big idea. I think it is a small one that has to be repeated, which is exactly the kind of thing worth putting on a shirt. Not a case you win. A reminder you carry.

Stay awake inside your own day. That is the whole of it.