A Necessary Love Note to Humanity

A Necessary Love Note to Humanity

Words From One Heart to Every Other Heart

By Kateb Shunnar

I want to write you something that feels less like an essay and more like me sitting across the table from you, maybe with a cup of tea between us, maybe with silence hanging in the room for a moment before I open my mouth and let these words tumble out, unpolished but true. I want you to hear me not as a preacher, not as some authority, not as a man trying to impress you with clever phrases or perfect grammar, but as a human being who cares about you, about us, about where we’re going as people. I’m writing this because my chest is heavy with it. This is not just ink on paper it’s my necessary love note to you, to humanity, to our future. And I won’t pretend I have all the answers, but I can’t sit silent and watch us keep walking toward a cliff as if nothing is wrong.

Don’t you think it’s time we started letting go of some of these patterns we’ve been dragging around for generations? You know the ones. The way we speak to each other without care. The way we cling to grudges as if they’re heirlooms. The way we treat our health like it’s optional, stuffing our bodies full of things that taste good but tear us down from the inside. The way we carry beliefs about politics, religion, education, even family roles beliefs we never stop to question, just copy-and-paste from the people before us as if dysfunction is a recipe we’re required to pass on. And the saddest part? The world is falling apart right in front of us, but as long as our little corner is comfortable, as long as we can buy what we want, as long as our status looks shiny, we shrug and keep scrolling. That individualism mindset, that self-sufficiency illusion it’s killing us.

And let me be real here: I’m not pointing fingers without first pointing them at myself. I’ve had to unlearn a lot. And when I say unlearn, I mean wrestle with my own ego until it screamed. I’ve had to unlearn that being tough meant not crying. I’ve had to unlearn that silence was safer than speaking truth. I’ve had to unlearn that my worth depended on possessions or performance. And let me tell you my ego hated every second of it. It was like dragging a stubborn mule uphill. But that’s the only way I’ve been able to bridge the gap between me and the Creator. The only way I could breathe freely was by dropping the dead weight of beliefs and behaviors that weren’t serving me, or anyone else.

Think about the blueprints you inherited. Maybe you saw your dad mistreat your mom and you thought, “That’s how men act.” Or you watched your mom disrespect your dad and assumed, “That’s how women love.” Or maybe it was the food those southern Thanksgiving plates stacked so high the turkey couldn’t see daylight. Delicious, yes. Healthy, not even close. We’ve been calling dysfunction “tradition” and pain “normal,” but those aren’t blueprints those are broken maps. And unless we start admitting it, we’ll keep handing those maps to our children and watching them get lost too.

But it’s not just family. It’s everywhere. Look at what we feed ourselves mentally and spiritually. Some of the music blasting in our ears doesn’t heal it hardens. Some of the shows we watch don’t inspire they normalize chaos. And don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good laugh, a good song, a good distraction as much as anyone. But let’s be honest: we’re overdosing. A little serving of entertainment won’t hurt, but we’ve been making whole meals out of it, while the Creator gets the scraps of our attention if that. TikTok here, Instagram there, podcasts, Netflix, Facebook everything has our eyes, our ears, our time. And the Creator? He gets whatever is left over after the dopamine crash. If I’m stepping on your toes, don’t worry, I’m stepping on mine too. I’ve been guilty of scrolling past bottles on the ground in my own neighborhood because “it’s not mine.” I’ve ignored needs because I was busy minding my business. But that “not my problem” attitude? It’s become our national anthem. And it’s poisoning us quietly.

Let me tell you a story, a piece of folklore I carry. There was once a little village that lived by a river. The river was life it gave them water for their crops, fish for their tables, cool relief on hot days. But over time, the villagers got sloppy. They tossed their scraps in the water, let tools rust on the banks, ignored little leaks in their dams. “It’s just a little mess,” they said. “Somebody else will deal with it.” But the river began to change. Fish floated belly-up. The water grew murky. The crops shriveled. The children grew thirsty. Finally, an old woman stood at the water’s edge and wept. “We’ve poisoned the gift that kept us alive,” she said. So she began to clean the river by hand, day after day. At first the people laughed “What’s the point?” But slowly, ashamed of their neglect, they joined her. Together, they healed the river. The village lived again. The river is our world right now. And if we don’t put our hands in the water, if we don’t start cleaning what we’ve been poisoning, then one day our children will look at us and wonder why we didn’t care enough to save what sustained us.

And I’ll admit, sometimes it’s almost funny in a tragic, shake-your-head kind of way how much energy we put into nonsense. We’ll binge-watch ten hours of a show about people who don’t care about life, then wake up empty and wonder why. We’ll argue online like our keyboard is a weapon of mass destruction, but we won’t knock on our neighbor’s door to see if they’re lonely. We’ll put more passion into defending a celebrity we’ve never met than into defending the dignity of our own communities. And yes, I laugh at myself too. I’ll spend hours reflecting on deep truths, then realize I haven’t drunk a glass of water all day. Hypocrisy, table for one? That’s me sometimes. But at least I’m learning to admit it. Maybe you see yourself in that too. That’s the first step not pretending we’re above it, but confessing, “Yeah, I’ve played that game.”

Now here’s the heartbeat of what I need to say: I believe in us. I believe we can stop feeding ourselves dysfunction. I believe we can retrain our appetites not just for food, but for music, for media, for conversations, for habits. I believe we can change how we treat each other, not with suspicion or bitterness, but with compassion, patience, and humility. I believe we can hand the next generation something better than what we inherited. But none of that will happen if we keep waiting for “someone else.” The river won’t clean itself. And the “someone” is you. The “someone” is me. The “someone” is all of us, one choice at a time.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. This isn’t easy work. Old habits don’t die because you told them to leave. They’re stubborn. They’ve been wired into your brain, carved into your reflexes. Willpower alone is like a rubber band it’ll snap under stress. But transformation isn’t about muscling your way through. It’s about surrender. It’s about trusting the process, trusting divine timing, trusting that the Creator knows how to shape you even when you feel like clay collapsing on the wheel. And yes, you’ll stumble. Yes, you’ll fall back into old patterns. But failure isn’t the end of the road it’s a stepping stone. The only question that matters is: will you get back up?

Sometimes it feels like trying to push a mountain with your bare hands. But mountains move, not all at once, but stone by stone, inch by inch. And the Creator has already put in you the strength to start lifting stones. What He’s waiting for is your willingness to stop making excuses and pick one up. Just one. And then another. And then another.

So hear me when I say this I care. I care about you, about your children, about the ones who will come after us and inherit the ground we leave behind. I care too much to stay quiet while we keep poisoning the river, while we keep feasting on dysfunction, while we keep calling bitterness “normal.” This reflection, these words, this pen they’re my way of reaching out across the noise and saying, “You matter. Your choices matter. Our future matters.”

I’m not asking for perfection. I’m asking for presence. I’m asking for the courage to unlearn what no longer serves us. I’m asking for the humility to admit we don’t know everything. I’m asking for the compassion to stop stepping over each other’s pain. Because if we don’t, if we keep shrugging and scrolling and numbing ourselves, then one day we’ll look around and realize we’ve left the next generation a wasteland. And I don’t want that. You don’t want that.

So let’s be different. Let’s plant seeds of gratitude instead of resentment. Let’s serve portions of kindness instead of violence. Let’s leave behind stories of faith, not tales of greed. Let’s hand our children a cleaner river, a better map, a world that says, “They cared enough to fight for us.”

This is my necessary love note to you. Not polished. Not perfect. Just honest. With this pen, with these words, I want to touch your soul and remind you: you are not alone, you are not forgotten, and you are worth the fight. And so is our future.

September 10, 1978