How can we be all different and all the same?

Don’t get confused by the title. We Human Beings are all different and all the same. That isn’t a trick statement, it’s the truth. To say we are all a family is not false. But why all the differences that make us doubt a common element? It comes down to a single word with seven very short syllables.

The word that gives us a clue to why diversity and universality are not a contradiction is individuality. We are each one of us an individual.

There is no one like us. There is no one whose mind works in exactly the same way. We may all have the same organs and capacities, but our uniqueness is assured.

Our place, in Reality, is as explicit as anything science comes up with to ensure that we are who we say we are.

Are we computers?

Of course, we are not computers, but we live in the cyber era. Everything is changing under our eyes. We scarcely know what the future will be. Imagery and thinking, drawn from the reality we live in, can illuminate truths about us. We have some similarity to the devices that now dominate the future.

The greatest similarity is the most obvious. Computers come in as many shapes and sizes as we do. But every computer that has been in use is marked by the person using it. All computers are fundamentally the same. All are fundamentally different.

What unites us?

What unites all of the diverse souls on this planet?

We can list what is common to us all – brains. hearts, life itself – but these simply exist. They do not unify. What unifies us is a Common Sense of the reality in which we live.

That common sense is our awareness that we are choosing human beings and that our choices define our reality. We are not merely people who can make things or actors on a stage.

We possess the freedom needed to give life to the wonders that exist in every mind on the planet. We make history. But freedom is only one of the things that unite us.

Freedom and conscience

Conscience is a wonderful world – “con” means "with" and “science” means what we can prove out by experiment. Conscience is a faculty in every human being.

It submits all our choices to an index of values. That index runs from best to worst. What we choose registers on our conscience. We are moral human beings.

We have freedom and conscience no matter who we are or what our state may be. We may be aboriginals in the outback of Australia or socialites in the bedrooms of Newport but the freedom we possess is identical. The conscience we possess is still the same.

These things unify the most diverse human beings. We all have the same internal spectrum. I shall outline the spectrum in the next article.