'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.