Revisiting Our Hardwiring
Author’s note: I’m involved in a book project that is requiring me to submit one chapter on the idea of perfection. This is huge, and I’m going to write about some of what I’m musing about today.
Today’s meditation was one of exploration. I began by asking about why humans are hesitant to include those who are disabled. My path of thought led me to question many things.
Animals may kill a defective offspring. Maybe they smell it, see it, or somehow sense it, and then they kill. As humans, we judge our species based on different criteria. We struggle to accept humans who are diverse.
We run from diversity as if it were a disease that it isn’t. We struggle; as humans we are born hardwired to fear diversity. What we fear we push away or shun. Like animals, we react rather than question.
A doctor friend once told me that back when he was in medical training, they didn’t teach doctors how to properly react with the parents when a disabled person was born. They handed the newborn to the parents and sent them home, only to have the concerned parents show up at the pediatrician’s office with the disabled baby, where they’d experience the same attitude. Things have gotten better, but we still push away what we as humans can’t cope with.
It is a process that makes sense but doesn’t make sense at all. There is Enneagram theory that supports the concept that we all begin as type six, and then slowly move out and around the circle to other types. Type six souls have a fear component in their makeup, whereas type eights lack this fear. Eights have fears: we just deal with it differently. Humans are wired to fear diversity. Can we change as humans to evolve into people who can learn to not fear other humans?
There are more type sixes than any other type on the Enneagram. While I might want a type six in a crisis where we run out of crazy survival stuff, I don’t want a six who hasn’t done their work on themselves in other situations. I digress.
We tolerate diversity, and in that tolerant space we still want sameness. We thrive in sameness, and when there is failure to thrive, we label it abnormal, stick it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), and many times tell the mother that she’s doing it wrong, or that the baby isn’t “right,” and try to move on. Meanwhile a little human needs help.
Jon and I had a kitten who couldn’t get the milk she needed from her mother. Jon fed the kitten, who we named ‘Roo. She bonded with Jon, and we adopted out the mother and kept her. ‘Roo grew into a beautiful cat who loved us and the other kittens we adopted. From ‘Roo I learned to love in new ways.
Humans bond with all types of critters but not all types of humans. We are like animals who are selective in who they allow into their space.
Over the past forty years, we’ve begun a movement to change all of this. This morning during meditation, I began to wonder if we can change from fearful to naturally curious and wanting to know about the differences and embrace them joyfully.
I want to live in a world where I’m understood. I want to live in a world where the questions I get are ones that lead to that understanding instead of more intolerance. I’m confronted by the human condition: fear.
Here in The Netherlands, the word “revalidation” is used when someone must recover from injury or stroke. The word means to be made acceptable again. It is no different than saying rehabilitation in English. We value a certain level of acceptability, and we attempt to have conformity. While societies choose to punish the nonconformist, those of a different color, religion, economic status, the LGBTQIA+ community, and the disabled are separated from many in society.
A quick search on Google shows that the Han Chinese are the largest race in the world. Other facts that turned up are that the U.S. still thinks that it is the world. And this is not good for the human condition.
My Monday meditation has taken me to a place I would have rather not gone. Is there hope for us as a species? I suppose if I could raise Mr. Darwin from the dead, he’d tell me that the human condition is set, and that evolution will occur, and we will all evolve, and some of us will be wiped out.
I think I’d tell Mr. Darwin that while we are evolving, we’re devolving. While children are becoming more tech savvy, many are losing the ability to form human relationships, and relationships are what it’s about. If we fail to teach children to put down the tech and look people in the eyes, we’re not evolving.
Tolerance is one thing. Understanding and acceptance of what causes us to fear is another thing.
I wouldn’t change who I am because my disabilities have been a part of that process. I’m happy with who I am. The problem is that society doesn’t fully understand me.
Humans are hardwired in a weird or confusing way.
