Sunday, January 15, 2012

We Are More Alike than Not!

Are we humans as varied and different from each other as we believe or do the ties that bind us together, damn us as a species? No, I don't think there's enough variation in our species to set any of us apart. Just as there are obvious similarities between myself and everyone else, similarities like number of eyes, ears, how we breath, the fact that we have hair, there are emotional similarities as well. We all feel hurt, guilt, shame, joy, sadness... These are all human traits. There are of course, different levels of emotion and just like the physical aspect where there are differences, in the scope of things the differences are minor. You have blue eyes, I have brown, so what?

So if you're looking down on us from above, you're not going to parse the human race into specific categories unless you have some specific (and weird) need.

An argument could be made that our thoughts, and our actions set us apart from each other. You are a serial killer, I am not! I would listen to that argument, I'm not sure God or any other intelligent being would. Why, because in a sense we are all serial killers of something, in some way. Even being responsible for participating in a society, in a culture, that creates murderers, rapists, thieves and cons is an indictment on all of us. And we are all alike when we call out that it is not our fault, when we claim there is nothing we can do.

Most of us don't! Most of us won't.

I have always said that we are more alike than different, and that while we should recognize the differences we should not let those few and minute differences divide us. We do!

We search out differences, we struggle and fight to retain them and indeed we celebrate those differences because in reality, they are few and far between, and meaningless to all except the individual. And to the individual, his history, his culture, his belief system, his skin color is paramount. We are all the same in that regard.