The worst insult my brother ever called me

The worst insult my brother ever called me was when I was about five or six years old. It was also my first identity crisis. 

I was playing with my brother Tony as usual. As brothers and sisters often do, we were exchanging insults of the highest order. At some point, he looked at me and said:

"You human being." I was devastated. I immediately burst into tears.

"I'm not a human being!" I protested.

"You are a human being," he replied, doubling down with the confidence 

"No! I am a person!"

The argument escalated.

"You are a human being."

"I am a person!"

"Human being!"

"Person!"

Eventually, I did what any reasonable child would do. I abandoned the debate and sought higher authority. I ran to my mother crying.

"Mummy! Tony has abused me!"

My mother, concerned, asked what terrible thing my brother had said.

"He called me a human being!"

There was a pause. It was a very long one where she was trying to understand whether she had misunderstood the situation or whether this child of hers was crying her usual nonsense.

My mother looked at me.

"You are not a human being?"

"No."

"What are you then?"

"I am a person."

Even now, decades later, I have no idea what distinction I was trying to make. In my young mind, however, the difference was enormous. A person was somebody special. A person had a name. A person had favourite foods and favourite colours. A person had important opinions about cartoons.

A human being sounded generic or ordinary like being called a chair or a potato.  

I was a person.

Looking back, I suspect many adults are still having the same argument. We spend much of our lives trying not to be ordinary. We want to be known as professionals, leaders, experts, managers, founders, directors, influencers, visionaries, and all sorts of impressive things.

Anything except simply human beings.

Human beings get tired. Human beings make mistakes. Human beings forget birthdays. Human beings get frightened. Human beings don't always know what they are doing. Human beings cry because their brother accurately identifies their species.

Could it be that growing older is the slow process of accepting what five-year-old me was fighting so hard against?  That beneath all the titles, achievements, and carefully constructed identities, we are all just human beings.

Human beings trying our best. Human beings figuring things out as we go. Human beings occasionally making complete fools of ourselves.

And if my brother is reading this, I would like to formally acknowledge that after more than 35 years of reflection, investigation, and soul-searching, I have finally reached a conclusion.

You were right.

I am, in fact, a human being.