We Humans are Like Highly Complex Computers…Minus One Critical Component

Hint: It's the component that makes sense of data.

Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

Michael Singer, my favorite spiritual teacher, founded a billion-dollar software company. He’s a true computer guy.

Me? Not so much. I couldn’t tell software from underwear.

But I am familiar enough with the rudiments of the computer to write this article…with a little help from AI, of course.

Here’s how the AI from my Google search sums up the computer:

“In essence, a computer is an information processor that takes in data, stores it, manipulates it according to instructions, and then produces the desired output.”

Bottom line: Computers are exceptionally complex, intricate configurations. And so, ladies and gentlemen, are we, except for that one critical component mentioned in the title that we’ll get to later.

[By the way, this is not going to be some boring article about computers that goes nowhere. Read on because this leads to something profoundly healthy and helpful.]

Humans take in and store data

So, how are we humans like computers? Most important, we take in and store a ton of data.

What kind of data? Mostly it’s all the experiences we’ve ever had. Like what? Everything.

The key is that there is not ONE case in human history of even two people having the same inputs/experiences. Not one. Every single one of us, even identical twins, is completely unique and complex.

-Some people have thoughtful, evolved parents. Others have abusive, violent parents which means an entirely different set of inputs/experiences throughout childhood and beyond.

-Some have a first love relationship that ends with them initiating the breakup. Others are the ones who got broken up with which, again, results in computer inputs that generate completely different outputs for years and even decades after the relationship ends.

-One person gets in an accident where their car is totaled and walks away without a scratch. Another gets rear-ended by a car going 15 MPH and has painful back problems the rest of their life.

We’re all complex bundles of inputs/experiences

What’s the point? We all have very complex, very different sets of data inputs inside us based on myriad life experiences.

And guess what? It’s not just our experiences that make us so different and complex. There’s also…

GENES!

Yes. Actual physical characteristics we’re born with.

-I’m five feet, ten inches tall, had red hair (before going bald thanks to the genes I inherited from my mom’s dad who was bald as a cue ball) and was born with good athletic ability and above average intelligence. I was BORN with all that. Yes, I developed some of that, but I give most of the credit to where it is due: A fortunate set of genes that is 100 percent inherited.

-Another guy might be five feet, three inches tall due to his genes. People made fun of him as a kid so he worked his ass off in adulthood to overcome those feelings of inferiority and became the CEO of General Electric.

-Somebody else’s genes dictated that no matter how much she worked out and watched her eating she was always going to be on the voluptuous side…which brings its own set of data inputs into the human computer that she, and all of us, is.

So we’re all computers with thousands upon thousands of data inputs which make us incredibly complex.

What’s that one thing makes us different from computers?

Our software sucks

Well, as my AI buddy said above, a computer takes in data, stores it and then, “…manipulates it according to instructions, and then produces the desired output.”

Those instructions? That’s software. And guess what?

We don’t have good software to help us take all that data and manipulate it to produce a desired output. In fact, our software sucks!

Our “computers” are so overwhelmed with data that it’s nearly impossible to make sense of things most of the time.

“Why did I just completely lose my temper with my husband? Is it because he wasn’t listening to me and my dad never listened to me? Is it because I’m exhausted from work? Or maybe I’m starting to go through menopause so it’s totally physical and something I have little control over? Is it a combo of all three?”

Who knows? Ditto for countless other life situations that arise in our lives.

Yes, there are things we can do to strengthen our software. Meditation, mindfulness, therapy and exercise, to name a few, all help us to better handle the thousands of data inputs racing around our psyches.

And as I’ve said many times, the ultimate answer is to let go of all these inputs we’ve stored over the course of our lives.

But that is hard work and takes time.

The main point of the article

Which brings us to the core of this article. And that is…

Be compassionate. With whom?

Everybody.

Every single person you know is highly complex and fairly clueless about how to handle that complexity. Yes, some are better at it than others, but we’re all some measure of clueless.

What should we do with this information? It’s more what we shouldn’t do, which is try to fix everybody.

“I need to get him to talk more.”

“I need to get her to talk less.”

“He should be less selfish.”

We’re always trying to change people, especially those closest to us. Some of that is fine and can be helpful to the helpee.

Compassion above all

But at the top of the pyramid, overriding all of the helping and the nudging and the advice-giving needs to be compassion.

Your spouse, girlfriend, boss, uncle…they’re all just a big mishmash of complex inputs that they struggle to make sense of.

And guess what?

You are, too. And so am I.

The takeaway

So continue on the path.

Do your best to let go of all the inputs you’ve stored in your hard drive.

But most important, cut yourself and those around you some slack.

We’re all just a bunch of highly imperfect computers trying our best to make sense of things.