That Unmistakeable Human Connection

Have you ever felt a connection with another human being? The answer must be yes. Of course, with our friends we feel a connection that we’ve built up over a period of time. With family, we feel a connection that we attribute to being related. However, we often feel an immediate connection with someone when they are in danger, in trouble or upset. There is this unmistakeable human connection that we feel from time to time. In fact, I argue that this human connection exists between every single one of us all of the time.

An example of the unmistakeable human connection

Here’s a video of young woman from North Korea making a heartfelt plea for support at a youth summit. I challenge you to watch this video and see if you don’t feel a human connection with her. Is there not something inside you that feels empathy towards her? Do you not instinctively want to reach out, comfort and help her?

I found that this video raised my awareness of the human connection that exists between each of us. Yeonmi here is from North Korea. I don’t know North Korea, I don’t know her, but I feel sorry for her and want her to receive assistance, comfort and love. If I feel that towards someone I don’t know from North Korea, them I’m sure this same human connection exists between myself and all humans.

The logical conclusion is that a strong human connection exists between every single human being (possibly every single living thing). The world we are in at the moment does a very good job of covering up this connection much of the time, so that we can hardly notice it, but it is always there.

The folly of countries

Why are countries so important to us? We draw arbitrary lines on a map and eventually say that somebody born just this side of the line is different to somebody born just the other side. Can you think of anything more ridiculous? The people on each side of the line are the same.

The defining characteristic of people is being human, not which country they were born in.

The human connection exists between all humans, not just those within the boundaries of one artificial country or another.

The human connection is deeper than families

One place we feel a strong human connection is within a family and we accept this because the members of a family are related, sharing DNA and genes. But then there are the cases where a family member finds out unexpectantly that they are adopted. They felt exactly the same human connection with their family even though they didn’t share DNA or genes.

The human connection is felt strongly within families because they live together, accept each other and join together for the good of the family. It’s not the family that creates the human connection, it’s just a good situation for exposing it.

Science and the human connection

Science would strictly say that there can be no human connection because there’s nothing physical actually connecting us. Let’s use science to consider this a little more.

Science suggests that the universe began with a big-bang. Just before the big-bang, all of the matter in the universe was compressed up into an extremely small blob. This means that the matter that makes up my body and the matter that makes up everyone else’s bodies were all squished together into the same small blob. Sounds like a pretty fundamental connection right there. We were all “brothers and sisters” in some way just before the big-bang.

Also, think about your body. When science looks at it closely, it’s just made up of atoms and these atoms are really the same building blocks for all matter that we see (there are not many more that 100 different types of atoms that make up everything in the whole universe). Further, our bodies are constantly disposing of atoms and taking onboard new ones (e.g. digestive and respiratory systems), so it’s highly possible that an atom in our body today existed in the body of many other humans in the past. That’s a sobering thought.

So even a simple examination of science cannot rule out the concept of an unmistakeable human connection.

Going forward

It’s pretty clear that bodies are not the defining characteristic of humans. It’s much deeper than that. We feel the human connection because we are actually connected at a much deeper level. It doesn’t take a lot of thinking to realise that everything in the universe had to have come from somewhere. There has to be something that is the “source” of what we see. I don’t want to speculate at all here about what this source is or what its characteristics are, but just want to accept the concept that we all derive from the same source. Some would say that we’re connected at the level of the “spirit” although others might say there is no such thing. We could also say that we are connected more at the level of the “mind”. Not much difference in these two concepts really, but there’s a connection in there somewhere that links back to us all coming from the same “source”.

Earlier, I noted that a family is a good place to expose the unmistakeable human connection because this is an environment where people live together, accept each other and join together for the good of the family. How about we change the word “family” for “village” or “city” or “country” or “continent” or “planet”? If we consider that everyone on Earth is a fellow human and we accept that we’re living on Earth all together, accept everyone as humans and join with all for the good of all, then peace, love and happiness would wash over the world. The positive impact of the human connection would be unleashed.