Observation.
It's strange how even though we claim we have never observed, we "people watch", "examine" groups, and even "see what kind of people they are".
Twice a week in Child Development class, we observe the preschool and write down what we see is happening. What do the kids seem interested in? How are their gross motor skills? How developed are they?
It's funny how even though we're supposed to be observing the children, but instead I begin to observe the other students who are observing alongside me.
"I'm not getting anything down, these kids are boring!" says the girl in front of me. She then proceeds to continue to scroll on Twitter, posting hash tags.
Weird how humans observe other humans in this sort of manner. The concept is that "Hey, you're different than me. Why is that?" Even though we are of the same species, we know nothing about each other. I think that we as a species are the most diverse. Other animals act so similar to each other, yet humans are so sporadic. Maybe that's why we are so keen to observe each other.
Which begs the question, why are we so different from one another?
I also think it's strange how different people seem to be from each other. We all have such unique personalities that separate us from each other it's sometimes hard to believe we are the same species. However could I suggest that maybe we are not all that different? We as humans know ourselves very well so we tend to notice the minute differences between us. From an animals perspective however we probably all have very similar behaviors. As other animals act so similar we probably do to, we just don't notice. There are behaviors common to almost all people (we smile when we are happy, cry when we are sad, ect.). The only difference is we do not notice these similarities between us because it is what is expected of us. My own experiences have often shown me that people usually notice the differences in each other but not the similarities. So maybe the reason we all seem so different is because we are neglecting to notice our basic similarities.
ReplyDeleteI see what you mean. It's like we focus on the strange and unusual. Maybe as humans we are more drawn to things that we don't understand, instead of trying to relate to things we do. Thinking politically, governments are always bashing each other for being different and "wrong". They never want to focus on the similarities. Maybe because they fear to be associated with others, maybe because, hey, they may have more in common with the enemy. We try to celebrate differences, yet we ridicule differences.
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