Similarities - do we need them to get along?

17th of June 2021

My life has suddenly become super busy and it’s not that I’m moaning, because a lot of great things are happening, but I am suspecting Ernesto is behind it all to try and distract me from writing! I have had some adventures, which maybe I’ll write about if inspiration comes, but what I can say is that I had an adorable visitor for a few days and she enjoyed posing for pictures in my garden, pretending to be a flower too I guess.  

I am a bit behind with Jonica’s prompts, but I am sure all is ok. The idea of these prompts was to give us something to write about, not to stress about. Last week she asked us to write about similarities. The idea was to show that there is more that connects us rather than separates us. 

I think it is right to assume we are similar in many different ways: 

1. We ALL want to be loved. Whatever our age, race or sexual orientation, we want and need love and approval of those we love. Of course we can live without it, but that would be a miserable life. I would go as far as to say that most issues and crimes are rooted in the lack of love and/or misunderstanding of what love really is.

2. We need food to eat and air to breathe. Whether human, animal or plant, all life on this beautiful planet called Earth has similar requirements to continue to live. Some people look at the Blue Heron and think he is cruel because he just ate a cute little duckling and they’re devastated that their child saw it. This is nature though and in nature everything has its place and a role. Some animals eat smaller animals, but it has nothing to do with cruelty or competition, rather Gaia’s way of keeping balance and order in nature. I mean, every gardener loves it when a Ladybird visits and decides to have babies in our garden, as this means the larvae will eat a lot of unwanted aphids, right? 

3. We dislike being rejected. Seriously, nobody likes that, but that’s how our society is built. The child must hear the word NO many more times than any other word in their entire life. That’s how parents ‘train’ us to do the ‘right’ things. As a result we do things which we don’t always want to do in order to not be rejected by others. 

4. We are all going to die! I know, nobody wants to talk about this ‘dark’ topic and I will leave further investigation of it for the ‘Darkness’ prompt, but another simple truth is that nobody gets out of here alive. Why take ourselves too seriously and fight over anything if at the end of our lives we all turn back to Earth, where we came from? You can be buried or cremated, but this only changes the initial form and the length of the process. We’ll all end up as dust in the end. 

I could go on and on about how we are all similar, but I’m bored already! Yes, we are all very much alike in more ways that I could explain in this short article. In fact we are all ONE, but this concept is a bit too much to understand for the majority of people currently alive on Earth. If we really understood it, there would be no need for ‘Black lives matter’ or other movements, because it would be like stating the obvious. We’re clearly nowhere near understanding, let alone innerstanding and overstanding, so let’s move on and look at the twist I have for you. 

Variety is a spice of life! 

Let’s look at how being similar is not really all that great. I’m not sure if I have mentioned before that I am Gemini? No? Well, I am and the tale about double personalities, double houses, double relationships - yep all true! Another weird trait of Gemini is that we often form many significant relationships with other Geminis. I think it’s rather unusual, but please tell me in the comment if you too get on with many people of the same zodiac sign. 

My cousin Aba is also a Gemini and she’s 6 years younger than me. She has a sister who is 3 years younger than me, so in theory we should get on better, but we never really fully clicked. One Easter when I was still a teenager we were visiting my auntie. On Easter Saturday tradition says to go to the church with a basket of eggs, bread and other food to bless it for the coming year. My younger cousin and I volunteered, but my condition was that I carry it half way and Aba is carrying it after the midpoint. I was ashamed to walk through the town with a basket, in case we would meet any attractive boys on our way. Not sure whether I shared my thoughts with Aba and it was the reason for what happened, but once we arrived at the midpoint she refused to carry the basket! I said that I will not go any further if she doesn’t carry it and she still refused, so I placed the basket by the road and walked back. Aba had no choice and took the basket and carried it back home. Once at home, we both went to separate rooms and refused to talk to each other. Somebody else had to go to the church to bless our food. Our mum’s didn’t even punish us for it, because not playing with each other we punished each other even worse. Such stubborn Gemini’s we are! 

Another example would be having a similar taste in men with your best friend. Whenever this happens there are fights and misunderstandings and all kinds of drama. I experienced it in the past with many of my flaky friends. My current best friend is the best indeed. Although she’s also a Gemini like me, her taste in just about everything is just a total opposite of mine. She’ll send me a picture of a guy she likes and I’d walk past him not even realising his existence. She can’t understand how 2 bright green colours make sense in my head to use to paint my living room, while her colour selections seem blunt and unexciting for me. We’ll never show up at the party wearing the same outfits, because we don’t have anything the same. Making the flower composition for her birthday was easy - just put together all the colours I don’t like and she’ll love it! As much as our values are the same, our tastes are totally opposite. What else can you ask for in a friend? 

So do we really need to be similar in order to get along? 

I’m not too sure about it. I find it beautiful that we are all unique and special, that there is not another like me or you. I feel what we do need is similar VALUES. Some of the things which I find important in all my relationships are:

• Mutual respect above all;

• Putting ourselves in other people’s shoes;

• Seeing GOOD in other people;

• Honesty. 

These are the things I value the most and I do my best to practice the above as much as I can, but I would lie if I said I was perfect and always succeed. I do think that it would be much easier for all of us to get along if we all practiced these in our daily lives. 

Until next time 💙

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How about you? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Alternatively write an article of your own about your take on similarities and join Jonica in her weekly writing challenge. 

The rules are simple:

1. Write about similarities (or darkness is the newest one)

2. Write 100% original content

3. Write at least 600 words

4. Tag @JonicaBradley (and me @fantagira if you like)

5. Have Fun!

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