{"id":2311,"date":"2018-02-20T12:19:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T20:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/?p=2311"},"modified":"2018-02-20T12:47:17","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T20:47:17","slug":"being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/being\/","title":{"rendered":"Being"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;We spend our lives rushing around\u00a0hardly\u00a0pausing<br \/>\nto breathe&#8221;\u00a0my friend said.\u00a0&#8220;Are we<br \/>\nhuman <em>beings<\/em> or\u00a0human <em>doings<\/em>?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I wondered the same as I sat<br \/>\nat a committee meeting listening<br \/>\nas the debate circled back for the third<br \/>\nor fourth time.<\/p>\n<p>And yesterday at the department\u00a0of motor vehicles<br \/>\nas a representative\u00a0reached for a form,<br \/>\nassisting\u00a0the gentleman twenty six ticker spots<br \/>\nahead of me<\/p>\n<p>And as I drove home, stopping behind<br \/>\na woman cautiously awaiting an opportunity<br \/>\nto turn left<\/p>\n<p>While a crane leisurely hoisted a beam<br \/>\ninto its place on a new overpass, then meandered back<br \/>\nto the pile where a few thousand more<br \/>\nwere ready<\/p>\n<p>And this morning as I sat at the window<br \/>\nwatching the birds in the soft morning light<br \/>\nas a light snow fell around them.<\/p>\n<p>I think I am both.<\/p>\n<p>A human being<br \/>\nimpatient<br \/>\nAnd a human doing<br \/>\nnothing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">(inspired in part by &#8220;The Present&#8221; by Billy Collins,<br \/>\nfrom\u00a0<em>The Rain in Portugal<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;We spend our lives rushing around\u00a0hardly\u00a0pausing to breathe&#8221;\u00a0my friend said.\u00a0&#8220;Are we human beings or\u00a0human doings?&#8221; I wondered the same as I sat at a committee meeting listening as the debate circled back for the third or fourth time. And yesterday at the department\u00a0of motor vehicles as a representative\u00a0reached for a form, assisting\u00a0the gentleman twenty six &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/being\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Being&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2311"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2327,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions\/2327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}