WE ARE NOT ALONE: THE STORY OF OTHER PEOPLE
WE ARE NOT ALONE: THE STORY OF PEOPLE
The phrase “We are not alone” is usually used in pop culture and movies and it usually means mankind is not alone in the universe and there is intelligent life somewhere else in the universe rather than earth, waiting for us to discover and communicate.
But when I say “We are not alone”, I mean that we (me and you the reader) are not the only humans around. Actually there are 7.9 billion human beings on the earth right now according to the United Nations as at December 2021.
That’s 4.9 billion more people than there were in the 1960’s, less than 7 decades ago. So we live in the 21st Century and now more than ever we interact with a larger groups of people than ever whether we like it or not. My ancestors who in the late 19th century would interact with no more than 20 people per day*. But me in the last 4 years could interact with 100 people tops in one day at school.
So this episode is a short episode, It’s about all the people we interact with in our lives. Something to note personally I have poor social skills and in this post I’ll concentrating on mostly strangers because I believe we live in a time we interact with strangers the most in all of human history*.
So I will mainly concentrate on 2 areas which are:
- · ARE WE HUMANS THAT DIFFERENT FROM ONE ANOTHER?
- · HOW SHOULD WE ACTUALLY TREAT OTHER PEOPLE?
ARE WE HUMANS THAT DIFFERENT FROM ONE ANOTHER?
For almost all of human history humans have tried to differentiate each other on a variety of criteria. The Greeks called people who couldn’t speak Greek (the language), Barbarians. In the current day USA, people with black skin are termed as African-American and so forth and so forth.
Humans for millennia have grouped each other into various groups as if we are of a different species.
But this is a normal evolutionary behaviour. Humans have evolved to notice things that are different more than similar or common things. This is useful in the wild. It is more beneficial to notice there is a lion by the river compared to just the boring old river.
According to Dr. Yuval, this same trait caused humans to judge each other on very small differences they had with one another. Example: Hernan Cortes, the man who conquered the Aztec people and laid the framework for modern Mexico could notice that the Aztecs spoke a different language, had different gods and even had different skin color. But Cortez could not notice that the Aztecs had a culture and a language even if it was it was subsequently different from their own culture and language. But at least the Aztecs possessed a culture and a language that at least shows they are humans. But NO Cortez could not notice these qualities of Aztecs
So are humans that different from one another? Not really. According to the geneticists Venter and Kidd, Humans are 99.9% similar to each other genetically. So only 0.1% of our DNA is different. In the same study, Venter and Kidd have concluded that all humans are ESSENTIALLY IDENTICAL TWINS
So to conclude we are not that different from one another we do share 99.9% of our DNA. So whether you speak Finnish or live in Sacramento, California or Eat snails for breakfast. You are not that different from me an East African who is bored and chose to write a blog. WE ARE ALMOST THE SAME
HOW SHOULD WE TREAT PEOPLE?
So above we have learnt human beings whether white or black, rich or poor and so forth and so forth are very similar according to science. But that does not matter if we don’t use this information to understand and improve our social interactions with other humans.
The matter on how we should treat people is matter debated for a long period of time by a number of people but the basics of how to treat people is kind of the same whether you are a Shinto in 20th century Japan or a Swahili tradesman in the 18th century or any other person from any community and any other time.
When we grow up we are taught to treat others with respect and dignity, those are the basics when it comes to treating others. I believe even you the reader have been taught this convention by your society.
That’s it right when it comes to treating people we should just treat them with respect and dignity, it seems easy enough but not really. Some people can be douchebags, jerks or whatever you would like to call them and that can make it difficult to treat those people with respect and dignity.
But remember even those people (jerks and douchebags) are still humans and are suffering from the same human condition like you. They still happiness, sadness and all the other array of emotion you feel but in a different way. Try to remember he/she is just another wanderer in this weird land that is the human condition just like you.
So in short be nice. Like how Confucius or Kǒng Fūzǐ (孔夫子), the first teacher in China says
"To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness."
So yeah I guess that’s how you should treat people.
CONCLUSION
So to conclude you are not alone, you are part of a large group of human beings that number about 7.9 Billion today. So that’s ok but we should try to understand that although people come in different faces, shapes and beliefs we are fundamentally the same as we are all trying to understand the human condition.
So if you read to this end thank you it is appreciated. Please comment and notify me the author on what you want to see in this blog and for more content like this please stay tuned every Friday for your weekly dose of the being human blog.
Also happy holidays everyone.
Next week’s post THE FORCE THAT BINDS US ALL.
* The above statements are not based on research but my basic know how
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