Human Atoms

Let’s take the drama out of being human for a moment.  Consider us as purely biochemical beings existing in a bigger picture of the world, each of us bouncing around doing our own thing but actually part of a much bigger picture than any one of us can see.  Let’s go meta, de-personify people for a minute, and imagine the entirety of our species as a living organism made up of over seven-billion elements, ricocheting off one another, forming bonds both weak and strong, and all just doing what life is designed to do – seek stability.

Thanks to Khan Academy, I’ve learned more about atoms, the basic particles of chemical elements.  I only ever took one chemistry class in my life, and it was third year chemistry in a French high school when I barely spoke the language.  So, obviously, I’m no chemist.  But here’s my go at a very basic explanation of how atoms work and interact. 

An atom has a nucleus, which is like its main headquarters, around which are either one, two, or three rungs of electrons.  The nucleus contains both positive and neutral charges.  These stay put.  The electrons, however, are negatively charged, and these are the bits that can be shared between atoms or even transfer from one to another.  Sounds like drama to me.  Okay, maybe I am personifying atoms a little in order to make this comparison work.  I’m human and learn through stories, so sue me.

An element feels most stable when its outer rung is full (or sometimes in a stable set of 8).  It doesn’t have to have all three rungs to be stable.  Helium, for example, only has one rung, but because that rung is full, the atom is stable. 

It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but allowing for the fact that not all atoms have the same hierarchy of needs.  Some atoms just need the basics, as long as they are full, to be happy.  Others need all three rungs.  I suspect people are kind of like this, too.

What happens when an atom has an outer rung that is not full?  It makes that atom unstable.  The atom looks for fulfillment, whether through transferring electrons or sharing them.  The most common stable bonds are formed when atoms share their electrons relatively equally.  But sometimes it also works out well for atoms to transfer what they have for the benefit of all.  Like if your outer rung has only one electron and your buddy’s outer rung is only missing one electron, if you give your buddy that electron, you both become stable.  Hooray!  You bond because in giving your buddy what they need, you are achieving your own equilibrium.

Think about people you know and their relationships.  Not just romantic or sexual, but all types of bonds.  I absolutely know some people who just give up their one electron for the greater good of a stable bond.  Those are the natural caregivers.  The ones you can count on to make you chicken soup when you are sick.  There are also people who need those caregivers.  That doesn’t make them weak or bad or needy, they just naturally have a chemical need for some additional support to round them out.  When you get two or more of those people together, holy BAKAWK, what a beautiful thing!  Symbiosis!

I don’t think I’m either one of those things, though.  I’m definitely messier than that.  Is it possible to be more than one element?  Or change over time?  Chemists, help me out with this metaphor.

If you’re reading this, Chemists, please also pursue personifying the less stable temporary bonds that happen (hydrogen bonds?  London dispersion forces?  This last one sounds pretty interesting, sign me up for whatever cool BAKAWK is happening there!).  Khan Academy tells me that without these weaker, temporary bonds, life would not exist!  What I’m hearing here is that we Chaos Muppets are just as necessary to humanity as those stable, loyal, steadfast individuals you want to hate but can’t. 

Side note – I also read somewhere recently that if you take the depressed chimps out of a pack of wild chimps, the others all DIE.  Anxiety, depression, and our other mental health "problems" are part of nature.

Go back to de-personifying people for a minute.  If we just accepted that all individuals are what they are, that they are born with a structure and a charge and all any of them ever want is to achieve stability (even temporarily), it’s so much easier to give up on the whole “good guy bad guy” narrative, generally speaking.  Yes, there are TOXIC elements whose needs are based on selfishly taking from and destroying others (did you know that research estimates 1 in 25 individuals is a sociopath?  More on this later…), so we all need to learn to watch out for those.  But the everyday villains in your life may not be evil.  They might just have an atomic structure that cannot bond with yours. 

We all have needs.  And unless it includes toxic behaviors hurting others, we all deserve to have our needs met.  At least until the noble gasses start judging the transition metals and saying they don’t deserve it – at which point I’m pretty sure physics and chemistry and biology would cease to exist.  Hmm, foretelling?

What I would give to see a “periodic table of humanity” attempting to organize the various elements of humankind.  There would be those people who achieve equilibrium by forming many bonds with various individuals, sharing what they have and also receiving (i.e. learning, growing, gaining support) from others.  I think a lot of the time I’m this one.  It’s when I try to be something I’m not (a caregiver or a lone wolf) that I am totally unstable.  In my core being, I think I benefit most from learning and teaching, sharing, exchanging goods and ideas.  Some of my bonds are strong (like with my hetero-life-mate T___, who I sometimes go years without seeing or even chatting with, yet somehow our bond never changes at all) and some are more temporary (let’s face it, I’m a life explorer, I like new situations and collecting a variety of stories).  But if I remind myself to nourish my essential needs, I’m pretty BAKAWKING happy.

But really, please don’t actually try to create this.  Cuz then some idiot will take it all literally, start assigning us all into a whole NEW set of categories and labels, and create MORE rules and regulations and stigmas and prejudices about how we all deserve to act and interact. 

Because humans aren’t as beautifully simple as elements; we fight against our humanity in an attempt to understand and control it until we spontaneously combust. 

If anything, take this metaphor as a way to make us humans try to act more like atoms.  If we can all help each other with this whole stability thing, maybe our world can start to thrive.