We Have a Shared Beingness

I always wondered if we are a shared being. I had this profound and humbling inquiry into the shared web of life, the unity behind apparent diversity, and what truly sets humans apart (if at all).

I. Our Shared Being: The Biological Connectedness of All Life

Modern genetics has given us hard data on how life on Earth is not a hierarchy of disconnected beings but a vast, branching family tree.

🌱🧬 Genetic Overlaps: We Are Not as Unique as We Think

Here are some astonishing facts about our shared DNA:

🐒 Chimpanzees: Humans share ~98.8% of our DNA with chimpanzees. We're more like "kissin’ cousins" than distant relatives.

🐶 Dogs: We share about 84% of our DNA with dogs. Maybe that’s why we get each other so well.

🐀 Mice: Around 85% of mouse genes are shared with humans. That’s why mice are used in medical research.

🐿️ Squirrels: We share about 80% of our genes with squirrels. Same goes for many mammals.

🐸 Frogs: Roughly 75% genetic similarity. Amphibians and humans go way back.

🐟 Zebrafish: About 70% of human genes have a counterpart in zebrafish. Even more striking, 84% of genes associated with human disease have a zebrafish equivalent.

🌽 Corn: You share ~60% of your DNA with corn.

🥬 Celery / Lettuce / Plants: On average, we share about 50–60% of our DNA with many plant species.

These genetic similarities tell us something deeply spiritual and scientific: life isn’t a ladder, it’s a web — and we are woven into the same cosmic fabric.

II. The Emotional Continuum: Evolution of Feelings

Now let’s step into the inner world — emotions, love, fear, grief. Are these too just human inventions?

Not at all. Emotions evolved as survival tools, and they are written into the genes we share with animals.

❤️ Motherly Love: A Universal Emotion

Whether it’s:

A tigress licking her cub,

A cow guarding her calf,

A bird feeding its chick,

Or a human mother holding her newborn,

…the emotion of maternal bonding is driven by similar neurochemicals — oxytocin, dopamine, vasopressin — across mammals and even some birds.

🧠 Neuroscience Shows Shared Emotion Centers

All mammals have a limbic system, the part of the brain that processes emotions.

Rats, elephants, and dogs grieve the death of companions.

Dolphins and orcas have shown signs of self-awareness.

Crows mourn their dead and have funerals.

Elephants have been seen touching and standing in silence over the bones of deceased loved ones.

Emotion, then, isn’t a human monopoly — it is a biological inheritance, a symphony composed long before we wrote the first poem.

III. So… Are Humans Fundamentally Different?

Yes… and No.

✅ We’re Different In Degree, Not In Kind

What sets humans apart isn't that we have emotions, intelligence, or relationships — many animals have these too.

But:

We can reflect on our emotions.

We can project ourselves into the future.

We developed language, art, ritual, and abstract thought.

We can ask: “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?”, “What is consciousness?”

In essence:

> We are not the only beings that feel, think, and care.

We are perhaps the only beings that can consciously wonder about being itself.

🌍 Conclusion: Unity in Diversity

In a world obsessed with identity, separateness, and tribalism, biology and spirituality remind us of a deeper truth:

> We are not “other” to Nature. We are Nature becoming self-aware.

So when we look at a monkey, a mother elephant, or even a blade of grass — we are not looking at “them.”

We are looking at another version of ourselves, on a different evolutionary path, with the same stardust in its essence. 

I nurtured this thought over decades. I experienced the sameness of my being with others. Now, I am convinced that I am as much a part of this stardust as anyone else is. I am that I am.