Time time I counted similarities

I signed up on a website called twinstrangers.com. The website is based off the theory that there are 7 faces in the world, you have 6 other people who look exactly like you. It sounds weird, but there may be some truth to it. (I got this website through Buzzfeed.) So I decided why not, I’ve always wanted a twin. So I started. The website works through a series of filters such as face shape (heart,round, oval etc) and the same with other prominent features of your face (eyebrows, nose, and lips). Then it takes these filters and matches it with other people (in my case women) who have these same filters. You then go through and decide if twin or stranger. Pretty simple, right? So I decided to give it a go. The first couple of pictures didn’t look too much like me, maybe the same nose or the same eyes. Some looked like they could be me, but I wasn’t sure. I decided to go sit in front of the mirror and compare myself to them. I started to compare chin shape, did her eyes crinkle when smiled, do I have the same lip shape, and so on and so on. Sitting there I realized something, every single picture I had something in common with. Here was a list of about 100 women and I had something in common physically with them. None of them from the same ethnicity, or age range. The only thing we had in common was our eyebrow shape. But it was something in common. And people tend to forget just how easily and how much similarities we share. Ethnicity aside, religion aside, if we look inside we literally are all the same.

I remember sitting up one night and asking my mother “how can we all be different?” It’s always confused me, even today.  If we really think about, we have things in common with the person who is least compatible with us.  Everyone is essentially the same: we all walk on two feet, we all can openly express ourselves, we all are given free will, so how can we be so different? How can we be different from each other? How is it that nations say we are better, if we’re barely different? This idea that we’re extremely different from each other because of genetics is so damn annoying. There I said it. It’s annoying, we need to stop.  We’ve got to look past the obvious differences and enjoy the even more obvious similarities we share with each other.

I’ve grown up in a very diverse town, I’ve interacted and bonded with people from different backgrounds, different cultures, and different religions, but somehow we’ve all managed to live peacefully with each other. Everyone sends their kids to school to mingle with other kids, everyone goes to the same grocery store, and everyone goes to the same library to pick up some books. The similarities are astounding.  But the similarities don’t stop at small facial features or daily routines, they go way deeper. In psychology class I learned about how a man went to an indigenous tribe. Now this tribe has never been in contact with the rest of the world, they don’t know English, they’ve never watched a Rom-Com or sat through boring lectures, but the researcher found he had more in common with the tribe than he thought.  The man soon learned that the tribe expressed themselves in the same way we do. They smiled when they were happy, cried when flooded with emotions, hugged, kissed, so on and so on. The tribe had never met us, never learned how we interact with each other and neither have we met them and interacted with them but the simple things that we do every day so did the tribe. We haven’t met but there’re more similarities between you and me than you think.

Going on with this theme of similarities, I really want to talk about this Interfaith Camp I participated during the beginning of June.  For the most part I worked with the younger Pre-K/Kindergarten kids except for Tuesday when I got to work with all the kids and all the parents. And let me tell you something it was the best experience I’ve ever had. I learned more about religions, I was able to visit a synagogue for the first time, and make friends and bonds with people I probably never would have met. People tend to run in the same circles, constricted to the people from our schools and workplaces, and our churches. We barely branch out. But here was a chance, a chance to branch out and connect with new people. I got to see friendships made. There was a lot of hesitation in exposing young kids to different religions, but in reality they’d be the best people to expose. Young kids have no restrictions, they don’t think twice about things, they’re extremely open and understanding. They ask questions, questions adults can we weary to ask. Young kids easily break barriers, they haven’t grown or learnt that there is a difference; they just see a new friend. The camp was amazing. I would do it all over again if I could(yes even the part where I had to wake up super early in the morning on the first week of summer). The event was an eye opening experience, not just for the young kids but also for the adults. By seeing the kids and adults get along, similarities between the religions, and between the people started to become more oblivious. In a discussion I had with a new friend from the synagogue, she explained that the trials my small mosque goes/has gone through are similar, if not the same as the synagogue and other religions in the area. If as people we look out and really look at the person across from us, we see the same thing. The same fear, the same joy, the same tears. It may be easier to spot the difference, but it’s more fulfilling to find the similarity.