Man And Animals - Accepting As They Are

Sometimes we wonder why someone behaves so differently, absurd it might seem to us.

Of course we realize later that to the other person their behavior was perfectly justified. 

It's just that we are unable at times to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. Now why is this so difficult? Do the shoes bite? Is the size not same as ours? This is a question that's been on my mind for a long time   Why do we, each one of us, think and feel so differently from others?

To address this question we have to look at cats, dogs, birds, fish etc. Why do dogs behave differently from cats? Or birds from fish? It's because each is a different species. Cats won't behave like dogs nor like fish or birds. Each of these has evolved differently and each has its own nature. Two different species aren't similar.

When it comes to people, we can take this analogy even farther. Each person is like a different species even if all people have 2 legs, 2 hands,2 eyes, 1 mouth etc. Each person is born with a unique set of genes and has had a unique set of experiences in their life.

The genes that you were born with and the experiences that you faced in your life hitherto are different from those that I was born with and faces. You are logically expected to be different, hence, from me in your values, your thoughts, your conditioning, your responses to a situation.

This is so logical, yet so difficult for my heart to accept. It's kind boggling.

We don't say a crocodile or a lion or a shark is cruel. We use different words to describe them. We may say they are carnivores or that they eat so many kilos of meat a day or that they are cannibals and eat their own siblings. But we do not use the word sweet, cruel etc to describe them.

Words like sweet (as in nature) or cruel are used to describe only those whose nature is quite different from the average of their species.

You don't have a vegetarian shark, nor a lion that is a sanyasi etc. Sharks are alike, at least to us they seem that way. 

Maybe, if a shark were to write a blog such as this it may understand that each shark is different from another and hence it may also use differentiating words such as cruel, brave, sweet etc to describe other sharks. 

But to us human beings, all sharks are similar, all lions are similar and so on. Here we use neutral or objective words to describe them - "eat meat", "have large teeth" etc.

But to describe each of us, human beings, we frequently use subjective words. Words that help describe how different each of us is.

But imagine if, as I wrote earlier, each of us is a different species. We would then describe others around us the same way we describe other species. 

Words such as galling, obnoxious, saintly, liar (or sweet / cruel) etc would hardly be used to describe other people. We would describe others the same way we describe other species.

So what's the big deal?

We do not expect other species to change their nature, language, religion, character etc. We know it's not possible. If we understand and accept that each one of us is really a different species, we won't expect others to change. We wont have New Year resolutions.

Does this mean we would love everyone and accept everyone? Yes, the same way we love all peacocks, whales and snakes. Meaning we understand each species has certain characteristics which will not change any time soon. We decide which ones to be close to and which ones to avoid. And which ones to watch from a distance with a binocular. 

Can we digest this thought? So difficult. 

It's our social nature that makes it difficult to accept this. We WANT to love some people and hate some others. Maybe the human beings who are least social can understand the perspective of treating other human beings as just another species - just different from themselves, nothing inherently good or bad. 

Is this a good idea or bad - to treat other people as another species?
We have come across people who would suggest to us, when we are having relationship issues, to take people as they are. What does this mean essentially? Is it not the same as treating others as another species - in the sense that we ought not expect them to change?

Which of us treats other people as they are? Those of us who are open or those who are judgemental? Does treating another human as another species imply alienation or acceptance?

End note
Just imagine. The expression "we human beings" would mean nothing if we treat other people as other species.