In the fallacy of our youth, death seems a distant thing that could never affect us.
We are told we will die. Of course, we know we are just another mortal human and yet it somehow doesn’t truly sink in. Every moment of experience we have up to know is of being alive, so it’s not a fact we can place in our mind properly.
We aren’t very good at understanding external data or what it means to us because deep inside we believe we are special.
In fact, we are very special and critically important.
The issue is that we are only of critical importance to ourselves.
Age brings us experiences of friends dying and body parts failing.
Slowly a sense of wisdom arrives, at least in some of us.
It begs us to start paying more attention to the fact that our bodies may not last forever.
It has an expiry date and if we aren’t careful it could end up in the trash at any moment.
Yet the issue of feeling we are ‘special’ fools us in many other ways.
First isn’t the best
In the battle and chaotic retreat of Dunkirk, Britain faced a terrifying loss but clawed some success from the jaws of defeat.
300,000 men were ferried off the beaches of France to England using any floating vessel that could be found. Fishermen, ferrymen and any idiot with a boat crossed the channel to collect the men facing imminent death.
The air force flew out to protect the men during the voyage from the skies with great success.
Britain celebrated the plucky achievement of our talented ingenuity to save so many of its men from the foolish Nazis.
General Gort led the evacuation whilst General Alexander was one of the last British troops to leave Dunkirk, they were not so delighted.
They spoke to Churchill about the fact that Britain had just proven it was possible to ship over 300,000 men across the channel whilst avoiding an air attack.
Britain was the first to do it, but there is no reason the Nazis couldn’t either.
—
Anything we manage to do is copyable.
If we do something others have not, we think that we are better. This is a common flaw bound to our pre-disposition to believe we are uniquely special.
In fact, it only gets easier after we have done it, as people know it can be done and learn from our mistakes.
After Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile, it became a regular event.
Today, many would-be entrepreneurs start a business thinking if they create a unique feature first they will have unlimited success. They forget any competitor can copy a feature if it works.
Having a good idea is all well and good.
Believing it will last is a disaster waiting to happen
—
Other people’s problems are our problems
In Britain the black plague began in South England in 1348, by 1349 it spread across Wales, Ireland and Northern England.
It ripped through the population mercilessly bringing the country to its knees.
The Scots saw this and thought God was punishing the English.
They spotted a divine opportunity and excitedly gathered an army to invade the fragile English.
Sadly, plagues don’t exist just to weaken the enemy.
The Scottish were just as susceptible and within days the invading men were either dead, dying or fleeing in terror.
By 1350 the plague spread across all of Scotland.
—
Be fearful of other people’s problems
It’s so easy to look at another's problems and think they will not apply to us.
We attribute other people’s failures to their stupidity and their successes to good luck.
We attribute our own failures to bad luck and our successes to our innate genius.
It’s better to assume the opposite.
When we see someone struggle we should expect to perform the same or worse.
—
Don’t be racist
Last week’s post on prejudice didn’t have space to talk about race in the way I wished, but it fits perfectly here.
For the past 10,000 years, humans have judged other races due to our tribal nature and the need to see ourselves as special.
The colour of your skin is due to just a sliver of epidermis about 1mm thick. It is so thin that it is translucent. This is where all your skin colour is.
Race is just a sliver of the epidermis.
“It is extraordinary how such a small facet of our composition is given so much importance. People act as if skin colour is a determinant of character when all it is is a reaction to sunlight.
Biologically, there is actually no such thing as race.
Yet look how many people have been enslaved of hated or lynched or deprived of fundamental rights through history because of the colour of their skin.
Nina Jablonski
Simplistic thinking
Our intuition is to judge others as less special than ourselves. Our nature will fixate on any characteristics it can find in others to advance this feeling.
Your intuition is a racist idiot.
The racism that has plagued our species is a leading indicator of our predisposition to see the flaws in others, whilst believing there is something special about ourselves.
The faster you can overcome this, the quicker you can see the world and your place in it.
You are not special.