What Makes us Human?

Humans are exceptional beings. We are the very definition of a social animal. There is no other species that collaborates to the extent humans do. If you think about it, we don’t really have anything special except our minds. A cheetah is faster, an elephant larger, a chimp stronger and a bird more agile. We are so ordinary, that we are the only species in the world that requires assistance in giving birth! Yet, we find ourselves on the top of the food chain within a span of a few thousand years while other species have been long trying to do so. There lies a fundamental step that we missed in our fastened journey to the top.

We all started hunters and gatherers. We were prey to lions, to tigers, to hyenas and many more apex predators. We went about hiding, gathering food, leading a nomadic life till we started using our most important feature, our minds. We tamed fire, made tools, domesticated animals and practiced agriculture. While all of this happened over a few thousand years, our genetic model remained largely unchanged and couldn’t cope up.

There is a theory in science, the theory of evolution. It states that over millions of years, we evolved from being single celled and microscopic, to be what we are today. Mind you, it happened over millions of years. The theory of evolution also says that nature plays a big role in how evolution progresses, natural selection as they call it. It is not by chance that birds have lighter bones to help them fly, polar bears have thick skin and fur to insulate them, bats can echo-locate and that we lost all our fur. All of it is natural selection and it all happened over millions of years of nature running its course.

Then came the human mind and its atrocities. We invented things that made evolution redundant. While birds got the power of flight through lighter bones and aerodynamic bodies, we got it through aeroplanes. While cheetahs were the fastest on land owing to their agility, we became fast with our technology.

In many ways, we broke the cycle of evolution. We took our destiny in our hands and set on course to reshape the world to our needs. But then, why is the genetic model still so important? Why do we still need to study it completely? Why is it so difficult for us to lead happier lives? Why is there so much stress and anxiety prevalent in the world today?

The answer lies in our genes. While we moved away from hunting and gathering, our DNA didn’t. Everything we do, our DNA dictates and that’s why we are so out of sync. We were meant to be nomads, gathering our food wherever we went. We weren’t meant to have exquisite diets and a plethora of carbs to choose from. Obesity is not a choice, it’s wired into your system. While we have the luxury to consume 2000 carbs a day, our DNA is wired to store it. It still lives in the prehistoric times because we never evolved after a point.

We were meant to be cautious, run and hide from prey and we still continue to do so except the prey is no longer a pride of lions but our fellow humans. We are paranoid, competitive and violent creatures because according to our DNA, we still live in the times of scarcity and in times like those, the fittest survives. It’s no surprise that lifestyle diseases are diseases that cripple the affluent. We were meant to work hard physically, labour our way through the day and not sit in our cubicles and enjoy the conveniences.

How we live and how we are wired to live are hugely disparate. We binge eat on sweets, on carbs, on fats because we are wired to live in the times of insufficiency. In such times, when a tribe of nomads found nutrition aplenty, they hogged on it and their bodies stored it for tougher times ahead. The reason why we have urges and struggle with weight issues is because we eat like we are wired to and our body stores like it is supposed to but with 24x7 convenience stores in the picture, there are no “tougher times ahead”.

Our mind is always on. We sometimes hate how we can’t stop ourselves from thinking and overthinking. We get paranoid about new people. We have trust issues and are selective in who we are friends with. Believe me or not, that is how we are wired. In the world of the early man, tribes often fought over resources, survival of the fittest you see? They say that there was a time in history where there existed 6 different species of human beings. Yes, 6 different human species. We, Homo sapiens sapiens, outlived the other 5 to be the fittest to survive. That got engraved in our genetic model which has stayed with us. We feel the paranoia of people breaking our trust, people backstabbing us etc. because we killed our other species to survive before, what’s to say we won’t do that again?

There is actually a study on how humans were never meant to be monogamous. In the days of the tribe, the more “lovers” a woman had, the more “fathers” the offspring had and the more he was looked after and protected. Even in the Amazonian tribes of today, polygamy continues to exist. No wonder we see infidelity and disloyalty in our relationships today!

We are wired to be creatures of labor and not luxury. We are wired to be in the jungle hunting and not resting in our houses hogging. We are wired to be surviving and not thriving! Yet, we took that jump, the jump that broke the chain of evolution. Our minds outran evolution, our bodies didn’t.

So what can we do? Will we forever be the competitive, paranoid, disloyal, scared and under confident beings that we have become? No. Here is where we are different. We are social animals for a reason, our existence depends on our species existence. Why is isolation difficult? Why are we struggling to sit at home? Hell, think about this, why is isolation (imprisonment) a punishment for breaking the law? It is because we cannot survive without others.

That is how we break the chain of all negative emotions we struggle with. We communicate; socialize! We are wired to have these negative thoughts but if we continue to be the social animals we are, we will overcome it. Therapy is a lot of communication, no wonder it makes you feel better. Depression is the embodiment of the emotion of loneliness. We struggle with it because we think we are alone, have nobody to talk to and act against our “natural social self” by bottling things up.

We struggle with our lifestyle and seek refuge because it indeed is unnatural to our body and mind. We all struggle with this together and we must continue to fight it together. I survive if we survive. Kindness, love, forgiveness, empathy, trust, faith etc. are all very rare emotions to find in a person because they are not natural emotions. Our social selves imbibed those emotions, they don’t exist in the natural world. None of the other species of animals display those emotions!

We are not in this alone and thus, it is our duty to keep reinforcing these emotions in the way we live. Be kind, love unconditionally, forgive when we can, empathize always, build trust and remain faithful. It is our duty to imbibe these emotions in our relationships, our conversations and our equations. If we affect someone positively with these emotions, we are doing your job, we are pulling them up and helping them survive. If they survive, so do we!

Yes, our bodies didn’t outrun evolution but hey, our minds did! Enrich the minds of the people you meet and maybe, just maybe, in a million years when nature takes its course and evolution catches up with us, kindness and empathy will be built into our DNA and no longer hard to find in people!