Dad, what is our superpower?
What makes Humans so successful, why have we taken over the world even the parts that plants don’t like to live like Antarctica and we just hang out there to see what is happening with no immediate benefit, we are the only animals that have organised ourselves to go to the moon and sent ships to explore other planets (just close ones you can see with your eye at night). We have done all this because of stories some real, some fictions we share.
How have we done this when a plant can’t even move very far without the help and the other animals are fighting for food to eat or be eaten and to make more babies. It is awesome, but the secret is adaptability, not the simple way animals do it, like growing faster or growing horns for defence or bright colours so you look poisonous and do not get eaten. Our big brains help us adapt how we eat, live and play through stories we have passed down and made up the world over.
The stories teach lessons probably some of the early ones were about what plants were tasty or dangerous, where the animals liked to hide and probably about making babies and saving food those ones still are told a lot. Maybe stories about fire and what foods or roots were safe after fire or cooking that were poisonous before. We sing songs about our stories and it is still one of our favourite ways to share and reinforce bonds.
The oldest story we can trace all over the world based on languages is told about the stars a cluster of them that have a lot of names like the seven sisters or the Pleiades depending on what language you speak. The basic story goes those gorgeous sisters, girls or ladies were being chased by some warriors, bad men or naughty boys and they hid together and got stuck and that is why they are so tightly clustered in the sky. That story is more than 50,000 years old ten times older than our most famous story still in use. That story was told in fact but in reality, the cluster of girls is really a cluster where stars are forming even cooler than ancestors being chased into the sky.
When we developed relationships with dogs and horses, we probably had stories about them. We still have songs and stories about chickens. Then when we started farming, we told food stories. Many survive today many Native Americans have the story of the three sisters growing together maize, beans and squash and how they work together like we should look after one another relying on each one’s strengths. Eastern cultures have stories about rice and some historians say the rice yield and labour required have shaped how the people behave today. The same with western farmers whose crops are less dependent on humans for pest control to increase yield or how much food is produced.
Small groups of people could develop some culture of mating or families, sharing and storing food and probably could have a few more babies survive if they had lots of food around but if they got too big they could not keep track of all the relationships who was helping who wasn’t who was being naughty or nice so we probably needed some stories about rules. Our closest animal relatives’ chimpanzees and bonobos have rules the chimpanzees are far more violent and their rules are enforced through violence the bonobos use sex to build the rules and withhold sex or group tactics to overpower bigger males to enforce rules. Bonobos are run by the mothers but they are a strong team.
When humans gathered in larger groups we may have organized together based on how we helped each other; how we fought over food or for the protection of our babies. We organized ourselves into cultures some of which survive today most of the languages and cultures aren’t used any more a few dominate the world. Some of them organized with women as leaders some with men, and more still by kin relationships but the stories and ways we organized and still organize today are all over the show, some benefit most of the people some only a select few do well. The organization, culture and rules matter more for our longevity how long we live and what we spend our time doing than most other factors.
What is our most successful story, the biggest one shared and used by most people almost everywhere we go, independent of skin tone, culture, location, sex, gender or even age? I will give you a hint it is FICTION. I will remind you I gave you a hint it was the first one written down that survived from around 5,000 years ago.