WHY DO YOU THINK YOUR ARE DIFFERENT ?

Did you know that the body of an adult male, weighing 70 kg, is composed of some 6,700 trillion, trillion atoms, divided among 60 elements of the 118 elements in the periodic table?

Although I vaguely remembered that from chemistry class during my school days, I had to look it up when I wanted to impress my 12-year-old grandson. He wasn’t impressed.

So now, I want to say this to all my friends, and to all the bigots, supremacists, fascists, chauvinists and racists out there, of whatever colour and creed, sharing this beautiful country of ours with me.

Every human being is the same as you and me. Everyone wants the same things - safe, secure, comfortable, and nice homes to protect them from the elements (including bad elements). They want good healt6h, good food and clean water. They want a good future for their children and grandchildren They want happiness, and they want to love and to be loved. We are all the same in that respect.

In addition, 99.9% of the atoms in the bodies of every human being on earth, come mainly from the same six elements, which are Hydrogen (62.9%), oxygen (almost 24%), carbon (nearly 12%), nitrogen (nearly 0.6%), calcium (0.24%) and phosphorus (0.14%). The other 0.1% are micro-minerals essential for life, such as sulphur, sodium, potassium, chlorine, magnesium, fluoride, iron, zinc, copper, lithium, manganese, iodine, cobalt, chromium, selenium, and molybdenum. Although we also have strontium, rubidium, bromine, and aluminium in our bodies, they do not have vital roles, and it seems, they’re in our bodies only because of their abundance in nature.

When we die, and remember, one day we will ALL die, and we are buried, our bodies will decompose, and all all the elements that constitutes our bodies, are recycled again and again, into new plants and new life.

So, we are all the same in almost every aspect …. except for attitudes, behaviour, selfishness, avarice, greed, and the good or evil in all of us, which we acquire in different measure, depending upon how our parents, our communities, our friends and our societies shape us.

In life, although we are all made of the same atoms, and all our babies are born with the same pure and blank brains in their heads, I often wonder when during its life, does a sweet innocent child turn into the monsters that many of us are. When do we start differentiating ourselves as whites or blacks, as Muslims or Christians, as Jews or Arabs, as bumiputras and non-bumiputras, as titled datuks and ordinary folks, as kings and paupers, as poor and rich, and so on… ?

Why do we need all this differentiations when we are all made of the same stuff, we have the same wants and needs, and our presence on this earth is not even a blink of an eye, in relation to the 4.5 billion years that this earth has existed, and probably a few billions years more, before all will be extinguished, when our sun finally dies?

I believe it all boils down to greed, and selfishness, and avarice, and unreasonableness, that we consciously and unconsciously, program into our kids, from the time they were born. It's our fault that our kids are not good citizens of the world. We must work harder to stop doing this to our kids.

By the way, if you think you are so special, be aware that the six common elements from which 99.9% of our bodies are made of, are actually exceptionally cheap, because they are extremely abundant in nature, and are relatively easy to obtain. One day, you and your proud and special self, are going to be broken down into these same cheap elements, to be recycled once again, into another awful human being. As the Buddhists would say, you should do good in your present life, in order to break the cycle, and be reincarnated into a better being and lifeform, or better still, to achieve nirvana, and never again to be recreated into this bad, bad world.

The Muslims will say, do good and be good, and God will place you among all the good men and women, in Jannah….

In 1924, the American doctor Charles Mayo, estimated that the value of all the atoms in the human body is worth only about 84 cents in 1924 money.

So, you see, we have more in common than what we have in differences. Come and join me, and let us put aside all our differences. Let us put our shoulders together, work for the common good, and share all that this bountiful country of ours has. Let us discard all our prejudices, and teach only good things and good attitudes to our children. Let us celebrate what is RIGHT with our country, and our planet, instead of always moaning about what is wrong with it.

Yusuf Hashim

5 May 2021