the Order of Things

I met a man who was like me; but unlike me in the regard he was happy and content. He has been on earth for seventeen arduous years. He has learned to love and has learned to live with his humanity. He has a wife and three children. I would have never known him for nothing more than a human had he not been joking about how silly humans were to his children.
"I still find it strange," said he, "That children here would go to extremes to make them and their animals look silly just to win a ribbon. Where I am from animals were used for what they were intended and not for fun and games."
His daughter, the one with the animal in question, laughed. It eased the tension she was feeling over the show she was about to enter in.
I asked him if what he said was true about where he came from. He passed this off as silliness and laughed at what he had told his little girl.
When he saw how serious I was he nodded and said it was true.
I asked if it got easier. If, in time, one could truly learn not just to act but to be Human.
The man told me that he had stopped acting eleven years ago when he fell in love. Though, he went on to say, it was still difficult to figure some things out. He still didn't fully understand the religious aspects of humanity. He couldn't grasp why so many people brought plants indoors, especially in the wintertime when plants she be resting for the coming spring. He also couldn't fathom, based on the religious principles of those that he cared for, why death tormented them.
I had never considered death. I believe I shall.
I asked him about the headaches I have been experiencing and the pain in my sides that go along with them now but he had no explanation and said he had adapted well. Even the atmosphere, thin as it was, had not been a problem for him. He did warn me against visiting high altitude areas such as the states of Colorado and Washington saying the mountain air was enough to slice open your lungs and leave you without means of acquiring enough oxygen to stay alive. I shall keep that information in mind when I set for travel.

Noted Things of Interest: Laundry is softer from a dryer, but sweeter from a line.

Note on Being Human: Laughter is the best healer. It can cure ailments and sicknesses and take away anxiety, tension, stress, anger, fear and any other faulty emotion.