I wrote this article as a standalone piece. But as in most things in life it revealed something hiding in plain sight. The landscape of childhood has changed. We removed the village.

My eldest child once stood at the window for hours waiting for my headlights to appear.

At the time, I was drinking heavily after my wife Nadira died.

On the outside, I was functioning well enough to keep life going.

On the inside, I was largely absent.

Years later, I described that period bluntly:

I was a functional alcoholic.

Functional on the outside, missing from the inside.

That memory has stayed with me because it revealed something uncomfortable.

Being born human is not the same thing as becoming human.

To become human is to learn.

To create a space between what happens to us and what we do next.

To create moments.

To create memories.

To create life.

To become.

That space

The pause between impulse and response

is where reflection, kindness, humour, and freedom live.

We often assume that being human simply happens.

You are born,

you grow up,

you learn to speak.

You work, you love, you suffer.

And by default, you live a human life.

I no longer think that is true.

We are born with the biological equipment of a human being,

but the qualities that make a life fully human do not arrive finished.

Reflection, restraint, kindness, humour, and freedom are not automatic.

These are not instincts we simply inherit.

They are capacities we build, slowly, over time.

That space matters more than we usually admit.

It is where we decide

which thoughts deserve to become actions

and which do not.

Without that…