No Longer Human

There are no two snowflakes that are the same, or so I have heard. A fact I am more confident in is that no two people have the same fingerprint. Billions of us on this planet each of unique in our own way, which is the commonality that we have, the idiosyncrasy we each possess. This makes the concept of unity that much more beautiful as we all don't have to be uniform to be in harmony. Rather we can much like be a symphonic choir, each person being a different instrument, but when brought together creating wonderful melodies.  

Being in different environments at times, I have become more aware of how different I am. Whether it's cultural, faith, or appearance, to name a few things. When I step out of my cultural echo chambers or my bubbles of similarity,it becomes so apparent what it is that, I do and do not subscribe to. It has me wondering with all the globalisation going on, which direction we are moving towards. We all pretty much use the same platforms online and consume very similar media through the internet. One could assume regardless of location, there must be things we all have in common that can be identified. 

If we are all the same, then we can not tell each other part. That would make reality very bland if we all played to the same tune. In a way what works as an identifier, is the fact that we are contrary to each other. The world I know and live in however is not always welcoming to alien entities. It could be owing to the fear of the unknown. I can picture it being a primitive instinct, from when our ancestors still had to explore and figure out what was safe and what was not, or who was a friend or foe. Perhaps when they were gathering fruits and roots and berries, they often strayed from ones that has unusual textures and colours.  

In the field of quality management and statistical analysis, anomalies are not received well. They could be an indicator of nonconformity within a service or product, which results in dissatisfied consumers and potentially making a loss in the operations. This practice and concept transcends the before mentioned field and it happens in our everyday lives. We look at our surroundings and turn it into data, that we process in our minds to see if everything is normal or not. When some piece of information is an anomaly, we raise an internal alarm. 

Unfortunately too often we do this when surveying people. What we do is, we strip people down to fit into whatever sorting algorithm we have in our heads, and based on current and past information, we make a decision in our heads about a person. This is to make a caricature of the complexity of human beings. We  are not merely numbers, or data, or the signs, or a checklist of things to tick in our heads. When we do so, it means all common ground is forsaken and only that which is strange to oneself is what is being sought out. This is morbidly akin to a witch hunt, if you really want to hunt for a sorceress you will find one in a place where there isn't magic. The fruit of such robotic prejudice, leads to immense division, as well as the budding of all sorts of phobias and isms.  

I too am guilty of such behavior, I look for the flags in a person and label them a certain with minuscule knowledge about them. People perish because of ignorance, how do we expect to grow as a community, if we do not take the time to look past our biases. Hyperbolic generalisations, are such a disservice as the maladroit conduct of a few individuals, is conflated to represent the millions of persons in an ethnicity or class of people. 

In all this I come back to the perfect man who walked on this earth, Christ Jesus. A man described to be full of grace and truth. Grace and truth the two components needed to remedy the ills of humanity. The truth ultimately being what God says about all humans on the face of the earth, and not what hate or fear leads us to think of certain people. Grace meaning that there is  a need for benevolence, in order for reconciliation to occur and to let go of any pain inflicted upon. Without looking to Jesus, our view of one another is myopic, and we see each other as no longer human.