Human dignity means valuing and appreciating humanness.
Human dignity means valuing and appreciating humanness no matter how quirky or misaligned a human function is.
A pride parade of smugness that every human being functions as a human being no matter how quirky or misaligned that function is.
Acknowledgement each and every soul is born into human existence with a connected innate grace that makes them equal in the eyes of the creator and the collective unconscious.
Is the right to pursue happiness the same as the right to be happy? No.
One is a personal opportunity of liberty and freedom the other is a demand on and by society. “You will own nothing, and you will be happy!” the World Economic Forum tells us.
Everyone has a role in the passion play.
I walk on my two feet. I see with my two eyes. I hear with my two ears. I smell with my nose. I taste inside my mouth. I touch with my skin. I feel with the heart of my soul. I, as an archetypal human being.
Consider a young 10 year old girl who due to an accident learnt that she would never walk again and that she had lost control of her bladder and bowels. Her self-esteem plummeted. The belief that she was not pretty enough to get up on a stage like famous actresses further compounded. She suffered from depression and anxiety for many years, and even though she always tried not to show it, she was really struggling. Her dignity was wounded.
Then in her late teens she firmly decided that she did not want to be that downtrodden person anymore. She may not have been able to walk, but she wanted to find something inside herself that was stronger than all the reasons she had to be negative. So she started trying to push herself in new ways. One day someone told her about a wheelchair pageant. She thought, “You know what? This is a challenge that places me so much out of my comfort zone, I’m just going to see what happens”.
After winning the pageant she was swiftly propelled into a whole year of out-of-her-comfort-zone settings, traveling all over the countryside and meeting new people. She went from being an incredibly shy girl who would never in a million years think she could be on platform to speak to people to doing it on a weekly basis. She had not discovered all was inside of her. It was also during this time that she truly got the allure of pageants. She understood pageants were about becoming your best self and being able to connect with people. An opportunity that allowed her to spark a light in other people.
Human Dignity is intrinsic within the soul of each human being felt extrinsically through living life. Each and every human being has a purpose in the circle of life. A purpose to experience human life living a certain way at a distinct time, and to discover and expand their understanding of destruction, ceasefire, repair, renewal, and the phenomenon of compassion, love, joy, and peace within the circle of human life.
To own dignity is to relish intrinsic, absolute, and pure human value. Dignity is connected to personal identity.
Dignity is different to respect. Dignity cannot be seized by status. Dignity cannot force someone to respect another person. Dignity cannot compel someone to perceive another as they perceive themselves.
Dignity is deeply emotional, and a wound to one’s dignity affects the same part of the brain that a physical wound does even though the emotional wound is not visible like a physical wound.
Loss of dignity ricochets… “How dare you treat me like I do not matter” … “Can’t you see we are suffering” … “We just want to be treated like human beings” … “Don’t you see how unfair this is” … “We just want to be treated like everyone else” … “I’m just like you man!” … “I am not an inconvenience!” … “I matter, we matter, why can’t you see that?” … “We are heaps more than living museum artifacts” … “You call this living? I call it extended dying!” … “I can’t go out in public, the chemo… I’ve got no hair! Not a single hair on my body!” “I feel totally embarrassed and humiliated being treated this way!” … “Where are the wheelchair user toilets?”.
Human dignity is not a human right, nor can it be made so by introducing it as a legal concept. It cannot be as it is intrinsic within each individual. Human dignity reflects how a person feels in their interaction with other humans in their world. A person can be manufactured dignified by their social status and given respect and legal ‘human’ rights but that is not built-in human dignity which is a pride in human status within the self which is heartfeltly bared.
Upholding the dignity of others is the core of having one’s own dignity honoured. A person who has lost the ability to control their bladder or bowel movements through accident or illness can be assisted to feel dignified by the provision of a nappy, or colostomy bag, or a catheter, so it is not blatantly obvious by smell and stain they have soiled their clothing. And then when the person has had an uncontrolled event it is important to have the soiled evidence disappear without delay.
Incontinence being contained and thus concealed on its own does not uphold an individual’s dignity. Listen to the angry cry within… “You call this living with dignity… codswallop! I just pooed my pants!”. “My private parts are my private parts… who are you to tell me I must have rotating stranger support workers looking at and touching my private parts with or without tongs?”.
Continence attention is care that can be delivered with compassion and respect shielding pride, self-respect, quality of life, wellbeing, hope, and self-esteem but it cannot refund human dignity or take away the new or stale pong and embarrassment.
It is true that the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has affected the dignity of people who through accident or illness require continence care and their spouse.
‘Informal care worker’ is an abusive label given to any spouse who does not get paid to complete ‘care’ work for their spouse that other workers are paid for if they do that care. The care work is not a ‘labour of love’ as it is not work done for pleasure, rather than for profit or reward. Care done for the advantage of someone you love is something that should not be taken for granted and seen by government as a free to taxpayer volunteer service to the community.
A marriage is a spousal relationship where both parties are intimate with each other. They may or may not have children together. They can bath together or separately. They are normally familiar with their spouse’s body and usually object to strangers viewing their loved ones naked body.
Consider a married couple where one is a paraplegic and the other has normal bodily function. In this couple’s experience the paraplegic requires daily bowel and bladder continence assistance and help with bathing their body. The care required is 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening.
The NDIS labels the spousal relationship as a ‘conflict of interest’ if the paraplegic wants to employ their spouse as their paid personal support worker. This causes one spouse to become the unpaid ‘informal care worker’ of the other and if a support services worker is engaged the situation takes away the dignity of the paraplegic who has to continually expose their nakedness to strangers time and time again, at a time the stranger is available and willing to work. Then there is the trust issue involved in will this stranger understand what needs to be done. Do I feel safe? Will my spouse be safe? Will I need to train them and instruct them about my body? Why is this so when my spouse knows exactly what is required.
Two people in this situation are embarrassed, humiliated, and violated. Husband and wife. The marriage is not respected by society, and the paraplegic is subjected to having to complete their personal care absent of spouse when a support worker is available and not at the married couple’s convenience.
Yes, yes, yes… there have been known ways around this type of payment, but it is all cloak and dagger, blind eye turning, knowing the right people, having the right level of conscious, and know how to work the system. Any which way you look at the situation the spousal relationship is being abused by government bureaucracy.