The Disappearing Act of Humanity

When we compare the past to the present, the changes in how we connect as people are striking. Look at a scene from 1974: vibrant laughter, music filling the air, shared stories over pints of beer. Now, fast-forward to 2024: heads bowed, not in thought or reverence, but in devotion to the glowing screens in our palms. The pub, once alive with conversation and community, is now a quiet room filled with solitary figures lost in their own worlds.

But if you travel south, deeper into Mexico, or further still to the tip of South America, you find a different story. The streets, cafés, and town squares are alive. People gather to celebrate, to laugh, to cry, and to simply be. There is life here—raw, real, and unmistakably human. These are places where connection still thrives, where community is more than just a buzzword.

So, what happened? How did the United States—and parts of Northern Mexico—lose this spark? The answer lies in our unrelenting pursuit of capitalism and consumerism. In the race to produce, consume, and accumulate, something got left behind: the essence of humanity. We’ve built towering monuments to progress, yet somewhere along the way, we forgot to build bridges to one another.

The result? A society where relationships are often transactional, where we know more about brands than neighbors, and where the art of simply being human feels foreign. This isn’t just about technology or economic systems—it’s about what we value as a culture.

In the southern reaches of the Americas, there is still an understanding of what it means to gather, to celebrate, to live for the sake of connection. Life happens in public spaces, not behind closed doors or through Wi-Fi signals. There’s an affinity for humanity that resists the pull of consumerism—a reminder that to be human is to be part of something greater than oneself.

Perhaps it’s time for us to pause and reflect. What do we lose when we trade community for consumption, celebration for convenience, and connection for isolation? What would it take to reclaim those town squares, those cafés, those streets as places of belonging?

We are not beyond hope. The lessons are all around us—in the laughter of children playing in a village square, in the music echoing through a street café, in the simple act of sitting together without distractions. It’s a reminder that humanity isn’t found in what we own or achieve—it’s found in how we share, love, and connect.

So let’s take a page from those places where life still pulses in the open air. Let’s remember what it means to be human—not consumers, not workers, but people, together.