We as humans, tend to classify things. I don't know why we do that, except for the fact that it seems to make us comfortable. We say things like, people fall into certain religious groups and we name about five or six and many of us forget that there are a lot more. We build our cars so that there are only a few general types and all cars fall into one of them. Almost all of our cars fit into the category of compact, midsize, full size, SUV, crossover or van. I think that we would be very unhappy if each car was different. Can you imagine shopping for a car and when you went out to see them, they were all different shapes and sizes and powered by all different types of engines? It just so happens that this can never happen, because of the manufacturing process. When cars are produced, certain tools are used to shape them and because of this, one company is not able to make a completely diversified line of cars. Another thing that has to be considered, is the fact that studies are make by the auto companies and these studies help them decide what styles of auto people would like.

We absolutely love to use the terms "average" and "median" . These terms really apply to only a portion of living individuals, they are nothing more than adding up things and dividing by the number of people. An example of this would be the height of a male. We might say that the average height of men in the U.S. is 5 ft. 8 inches. This certainly doesn't mean that every man is that size, it means that if we add up the heights of all the men in the U.S. and divide by the number of men in the U.S., we will get a figure that we call the average height. Where did we ever get the idea that knowing the average height of people was important? I don't know if any police departments in the U.S. still have a height requirement, the New York City police no longer have one? The height requirement in a lot of places was "the average height". You have to wonder why it wouldn't have been just big people, say people over 6 feet tall, for example? Talking about the median income seems even more mysterious. If we examine this principle, which is nothing more than an average of what people in the area are making, we see areas where the posted median income is so low, that no one in the area could live there if that was all they were making. Could it be that the figures cited for median income in some areas are wrong? It certainly seems that way. Let's look at some very rich areas. These are areas where people are very rich and have servants. If the servants live in the house, there salary is figured into the median income of the area, which lowers the median income and probably helps to reduce taxes in the area.

People like things in a neat package and they worry if they are not. When you have a group of people that are under some type of control, their cumulative I.Q. seems to drop to the same as the person in the group that has the lowest I.Q. People that handle groups of other people can attest to this fact. Jurors are a prime example of this. If a group of jurors is taken from a common room and told that they have to go to a different floor, they will all try and get on the same elevator that the officer taking them will get on. More times than not, the officer will have to stop them from doing this, even thought that had been told where to go. Another example is a group of people on a tour. Tour guides routinely complain about tourists wandering off or doing stupid things that they wouldn't normally do if they were alone. Crossing the street is a good example. A group of people following a tour guide are more than likely to cross in front of cars that are moving than not. It is sort of a herd instinct. Groups of prisoners exhibit this very bad judgment at times also.

Another example of people all wanting to be the same is clothing. There may be all different colors available, but there are only certain basic types of clothing. Men in western countries wear shirts, pants and suits and women wear dresses, skirts and blouses, pants and suits with both sometimes wearing shorts. Why aren't there other choices? There aren't other choices, because most people don't want to be too different. How many times have you gone out into the street and seen a guy wearing a toga lately? I bet that hasn't happened too often. Sameness is just something that most of us require. You have to wonder, are we drifting into an area where we will be even more alike? Will future people decide that wearing only certain color clothing is appropriate? We do this now in a limited way. If we go to a funeral we wear black or very dark colors. The Chinese wear white. Some people that go to what they deem a high class function, wear dinner jackets and people in wedding parties usually wear a tuxedo. With this be expanded on in the future? Who can say? Maybe there will be a time when men and women will wear the same fashions?

Nature started us out using the principle of sameness. As we all know there are only two varieties of humans. This principle has been ingrained into our collective psyche. Most of us just do not want to stand out. Standing out can be a good or bad thing at times. People who live in a totalitarian country wouldn't want to stand out, because this would bring the attention of the government onto them and they could be considered a threat. Can you imagine if there weren't only two types of humans? What if there were 100 different sexes of humans or 1,000, or even more? Would this affect the principle of sameness, I mean would each sex want to be dressed the same for example? Maybe the entire principle of sameness would be out the window. If this happened it would revolutionize the world. All the different things that we have gotten used to would change. Maybe this would help the world situation? People might not band together so readily.

The discovery of life on some other planet might reveal such a society, one that is far more diverse than our own. Maybe it will be a society that doesn't do averages and median incomes? Maybe they will have buildings that will all look different, drive cars that are one of a kind and wear clothes of all different types and styles? Could it be that there will be no herd instinct on this world? I guess anything is possible. Maybe we will be integrated with other beings in the future and eventually we will also get away from the sameness that we now crave? Much of the animal world is the same way. If we look at dogs for example, the pack likes to stick together. Yes this is true for much of the animal world, but not all. Could this be a trait of things that live on the planet earth? Sameness, averages, medians, these are the things that can choke individualism.