'Tis the season?

Every year, since I've been alive at least,  November, December and the first day of January have been slathered on television and in magazines and in newspapers as a time of togetherness, love, hope and peace.   

And while we are all inundated with soft candlelight and spiritual traditions and a never-ending soundtrack of songs that include words like "jingle" and "peace" and "Santa", the sorrows of the world go on.

And this year is no different.

In fact, if anything, this alarming juxtaposition between our idealized holiday season and our (usually)  painful reality is worse, and worsening.

I start each day by sipping coffee and scanning the internet offerings for the news of the day.   And for many weeks now, the news of the day has become increasingly swollen with  the  human tendency towards ignorant, violent hatred.    Innocent people strangled.  Innocent people murdered.  Innocent people being shot.  Innocent people being killed by bombs in wars that increasingly seem to have had no beginning, and which will have no end.  

As far as I can tell, with my Kindergarten teacher sensibilities and simplistic world view, the main cause for all of this ignorant, violent hatred can be summed up very simply:

People are different.

Differences are uncomfortable.

Differences are scary.

Therefore

People are scary.

People who are different from us are scary.

And what do humans do when something is scary?

The same thing all animals do.

We either fight, or we run away.

But I asked myself this morning, "Are we really that different?".   

Not different in terms of opinion, or hair color or cultural backgrounds.

I mean different in the most basic way. How we are built.  What we are made of.  

So I looked up "human DNA" and "human genome".

I pushed past the shiny websites that offered simple explanations such as "Humans are 99.9% alike!" and "All humans are 50th cousins!".  These proclamations might be true, but how true?

So I looked up scientific research.  

I read a number of journal articles.

Then I went to the journal "Science".  

And I found this:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/291/5507/1219.full?sid=10817772-292e-482c-b589-7b6ef0a77cb5

So here, the biggest circles (containing 3 heads) represent 3 different continents (Africa, Asia and Europe).

The slightly smaller circles (containing 2 heads) represent people from 2 different continents who have identical DNA.

And the smallest circles, (containing 1 head) represent people with DNA from just one continent.

Very nice.  But what does this  mean?

In very simple terms, this means that people from 2 very different continents can have the same or similar DNA.  

This means that all our perceived differences:  the clothes we wear, what language we speak, what religion we follow are all rather arbitrary, shaped by the people and the social world around us.  

This means that we can't just look at a person and really know them.  We can't just look at a person and know that they are truly different from us.  

For all we know, deep in the building blocks that make us up, we might have the same DNA as that person we hold in contempt, that person we are fighting, that person we hate.  

I don't have the scientific evidence  to prove that every human on earth is my cousin.  I don't have the scientific evidence to prove that every human is 99.9% identical to me.   

But I have a heart,  and my heart tells me that we are far more alike than we are different. This holiday season as I read yet another news story about people hating and hurting each other, I can't help but feel that when we hurt and hate  anyone, we are in many ways hurting and hating  ourselves.   

Perhaps someday we'll realize this.  

Until next time.  

Perspective

In true teacher form, I vanished from my blog just before Halloween and have not appeared until just now, two days after my school went on winter break.  And for this I apologize.

However,  you can probably expect me to vanish again somewhere in early spring as I am writing reports and doing conferences.  You have been warned.


So this morning I was standing at the kitchen sink making coffee, shivering in the icy air, watching my breath billow into clouds of steam.  As I poured my electrically-boiled water into my coffee grounds that were shipped from Brazil to Japan,  griping to myself about uninsulated houses, I realized something.

A huge number of us are pretty much spoiled.
Spoiled rotten I say.
Absolutely, distressingly, alarmingly indulged.

I am spoiled.  You are spoiled.  In fact, anyone able to read this right now is spoiled.

We are spoiled by the conveniences  that we have come to expect as things we deserve, if not MUST HAVE.  

Conveniences.

Such as:

1. Being instantly warm when it is cold.  For thousands and thousands of years humans did not have electric blankets, insulated homes, central heating, electric heating, gas heating.

What they did have was fire, clothing hand-made from animal pelts, wool or hair.  And they had each other to huddle against in shelters that might have blocked the wind and wet, but did not protect them from the cold.

And in fact, right now, as we stand on the brink of 2015, there are many people who still live like this. And these people live far away from us and they live right around the corner.

2. Being instantly cool when it is hot.  Conversely, for thousands and thousands of years, humans living in hot climates or living in the middle of the summer heat did not have electric fans or air conditioners.

What they did have was the hope for a breeze,  shade, and perhaps if they were very lucky an ocean, river, lake, pond or puddle in which to cool off and stay hydrated.

And in fact, right now, as we stand on the brink of 2015, there are many people who still live like this.  And these people live far away from us and they live right around the corner.

3. Having food and drink instantly accessible when we are hungry and thirsty.  Among the most important driving forces of life on this planet, the quest for food and sustenance is one of the most powerful.  Like any other creature, humans have had to gather, scavenge and hunt for food,  dependent on the whims of weather and chance.

And it is all too easy for many of us--living amid the luxuries of supermarkets and refrigeration and a world so tightly connected that I can stand in my Kyoto kitchen making Brazilian coffee--to feel like we deserve to have food and drink at our fingertips.   And not just any food or drink, but EXACTLY the food and drink we have dreamt up.

In fact, right now, as we stand on the brink of 2015, there are many people who are on the brink of starvation, suffering from the diseases that follow famine.  And these people live far away from us and they live right around the corner.




The list goes on...

--having access to clean water and safe, sanitary means of getting rid of our garbage and bodily wastes.

--having access to doctors, nurses, hospitals and medicines when our bodies or minds are sick

--having access to an education that prepares us to be thoughtful, hopeful, participating members of our society and world

--feeling safe in our homes and communities


All of these things and more are modern, "first world" luxuries my friends.  

And sometimes I have to take a big step back and wonder how it is that I can be sitting in front of this computer, able to stretch my useless words across the world at a tap of my finger when millions of people in the world lack food, clean water and life-giving medicines.

How can this computer exist and function in the same world where children are dying from preventable diseases?   How can I be using the power of the internet in the same world where somewhere not far from me a homeless person is huddled, freezing, hiding beneath a bridge over which the tourists and taxicabs and suited business folk race?

It is a strange, troubling world sometimes my friends.  And sometimes we need to take a step back and realize how very unfairly lucky so many of us are.

Until next time...