Humanity: the 'apocalypse' prompt.

Disclaimer: I don't know how successful I am at articulating this crap in my head, but try not to dismiss the post too quickly. 

There is one thing in life that brings an immense happiness to my being: humanity. I'm just discovering that all I ever want is to see the human in people. I know that this ultimately leads to a conversation about love, but I feel that that particular topic takes way too much credit away from other concepts (and it will definitely have more than its fair share of recognition on this blog), so I'm just going to elaborate on human connection. 

So I've been fortunate enough to be introduced to 'Spoken Word' poetry a couple of years ago. It has been and still is my mode of coping and expression. The environment that Spoken Word creates is an unadulterated projection of humanity. Open mics are about more than just the freedom of poetic expression; they are about having a receptive audience. At these poetry events, we are taught to be active with the poet - "...if you hear a line that you feel or resonate with, don't be afraid to let the poet know. Snap, clap, stomp - if you give the poet good energy, he (/she) will give it right back." And so the foundation to this relationship between audience and poet is humanity. A call and response. A moment of vulnerability and the affirmation of others.

All this to get to my point...

A couple of months ago, a friend had asked me for a writing prompt. I told her to describe the end of the world - whether that had sci-fi/cinematic influence or whatever - she had complete freedom of interpretation. She sent me back something rather interesting, and it triggered the long-running idea of a personal apocalypse. This inevitably ties back to the idea of 'context' [as with everything I'll ever think/talk about]. 

Everyone has their own personal "end of the world"; and when you think 'apocalypse' there are no zombies or hell fire or aliens or whatever other shit things come to mind. I'm thinking of when humans stop being human. The modern-day apocalypse takes the form of every social issue that is among us today. When people value money more than they value life...when people dictate the rights of other people...when people of differing contexts are driven by their perception of their superiority to prove something that can't ever truly be universally affirmed as they desire. We are our own destruction.

But the encounter of inhumanity is a very human experience.

Consequently, the great majority of Spoken Word is inspired by an individual account of a social issue. So we're brought back to this simple projection: a poet spits his story of an inhumane experience and the audience affirms his context. This acknowledgement validates the poet and humanity becomes apparent.

This is a phenomenal group poem by some students from Rutgers University.