Same difference

If there is anything I love about this life and this world, it's the diversity. Really. It can't be colorful enough, diverse enough, multi-culti enough for me.

Here we are, all of us, on one small planet, somewhere in the middle of a rather small solar system, somewhere at the edge of a galaxy, in the endless vastness of space. The universe is huge and we've got pea brains. How is that supposed to work? Still, those pea brains produce enough whatever to allow us to go to the moon, cure some diseases, think about weird stuff, and also pollute the planet, destroy the atmosphere and bring ourselves to the brink of destruction. Tell me why that is, in and of itself, not worth contemplating?

In all of my musings, of course, I keep coming back to one point: even though we're all so different -- actually unique as individuals -- there is so much about us that is still the same: our feelings, our sorrows, joy, pain, desires, wishes, hopes, and aspirations. We'd all, it appears, like to live a decent life (whatever that means) and not have to worry as much as we do about as many things as we do. I get the feeling that we'd all just like to know that our children are doing OK, that they are healthy and (at least sometimes) happy, that they have enough to eat and, when the situation calls for it, can celebrate and be happy about births and marriages and birthdays and whatever else is reason for joy.

OK, I'll admit it, I haven't been everywhere. But, wherever I've been, this is what I have seen and felt that people want. From all the TV shows, documentaries and travelogues that I have read, I get the impression that this is what most people want. I'm beginning to think -- though admittedly all evidence is not yet in -- that this is somehow a feature of the human condition. I really don't know what the difference is between me, a Wall Street banker, a worker in a German factory, a French civil servant, a peasant in China or an Aborigine in Australia. Oh, our circumstances are very, very different, but how we all feel about the world around us ... well, I can't really see how different it is. We feel the same joy and pain, we suffer from the same diseases ... where is the fundamental, existential difference? I just don't see it.

On the outside, we're very different: our hair, eyes, skin, stature, build ... you name it ... are very, very different. On the inside, our intelligence, our attitude, our self-understanding, our face-to-the-world ... if you know what I mean ... are very different as well. But deep down ... and I mean really deep down, at the core of our being, at that space-time that defines us as being "human" ... well, I'm not sure there's all that much difference at all. I haven't been able to locate that difference, but I've sought far and wide. I've tried to find it in every person I have ever met. But, as it turns out, the more I look, the more I find out that in the most important, essential and deepest ways, there just isn't a lot of difference between Mike and Jane and Michele and Rolf and Dimitry and Joanna, and Jose and Qiang and Kwame and ... well, you get the point.

It takes a while before you realize that we're really not all that different from one another. And it takes a little longer to realize that we're all more alike that different. But once you do, I can assure you, the world becomes a simpler place, and as a result, it becomes a better, more livable place as well.