My own little world is different than yours.
I have only a few good friends, and I like that. I ride a bike that’s nearly 20 years old with downtube shifters, made by a company you can’t even find on Google, and I don’t own a car.
I’m American, my wife is Indian.
My dog is a pitbull mixed with dalmation.
I do horribly geeky things, like Warhammer.
I cook and maintain the house, rather than my wife. I intend to build a castle some day. I’m a Software Engineer.
And… this is my world. I get the impression that everyone can write a list like the above, focusing on the things they don’t see other people do. Generally, most will enjoy putting together such a list, just like I did.
And this is silly, right? Why do humans take pleasure in being different? Computers, for example, excel when they do everything the same, provided the same is good enough. A computer that can communicate with another using a given protocol is a good computer, and 2 computers running the same program can parallelize their results for more efficiency. Clearly humans are not different for the sake of efficiency, however, so why are they different?
Why do humans care about diversity in life and experience? Why do we shiver with adrenaline when a lone archer holds the line against charging Chaos Chosen Knights, or when a charging unit of Wild Riders causes the opposing general’s unit to flee in fear in a game of Warhammer? Why are we compelled to build machines of increasing complexity, such as each year’s iteration of computers and cars? Is it not enough just to survive and reproduce? A superficial look at evolution would indicate that everything else is tertiary, and yet we’re driven by more than food and sex. Well. Most of us are.
I don’t have answers, really. I don’t know what makes us build buildings taller and taller, or why we care whether a piece of furniture is shaped just so for aesthetic purposes at the expense of comfort.
I don’t know why I appreciate maneuvering a dinosaur named Yoshi in a go kart around a fanciful track, while hurling turtle shells at my opponents.
I just know that I do.
I suppose this is the whole purpose of why psychologists do what they do, eh?
