Nothing Special

It seems that I have spent a lifetime trying to unlearn things that I have learned. At least I've done my best to unlearn my upbringing, the nurture part. The nature part (DNA) is a struggle, too. One recent development in my quest for unlearning is the realization that there is nothing special about me. I mean that not in a self-centered way, but pragmatically. There is not one thought or emotion or "reality" that I have experienced that someone else has not experienced before me. I'm sure that Mallory meant this knowledge to console me. Everyone goes through the same mental process after a divorce. Shouldn't that be comforting? I am not alone. What feels like unique pain is universal. We are all wired the same.

Population Clocks

U.S. 302,693,838

World 6,613,983,597

11:15 GMT (EST+5) Aug 25, 2007

There are 6,613,983,597 homo sapiens in the world, "bipedal primate mammals that are anatomically related to the great apes but distinguished especially by notable development of the brain with a resultant capacity for articulate speech and abstract reasoning, are usually considered to form a variable number of freely interbreeding races, and are the sole living representatives of the hominid family." ("Man", Websters Online)

We are big selfish mammals that take up a lot of room, eat too much, get fatter and fatter, dirty our nest, fight and kill each other for natural resources, multiply multiply multiply, and have inflated self-worth, believing we were created by God and chosen to have dominion over the earth.

Even Mother Theresa, who lived against most negative human tendencies, was not special. "My smile is a great cloak that hides a multitude of pains," she wrote in 1958. "[People] think that my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing, and that my intimacy with God and union with His will fill my heart. If only they knew." Later she went into more detail: "The damned of hell suffer eternal punishment because they experiment with the loss of God. In my own soul, I feel the terrible pain of this loss. I feel that God does not want me, that God is not God, and that God does not exist." Il Segreto di Madre Teresa (Mother Teresa's Secret).

Mother Theresa realized that she was not special. Somehow I find that comforting.