Just a few days ago, I was having a conversation with my brother trying to discuss if the most average human exists. What would they look like, what would their hobbies and interests be, etc. My thought process depicted that it would be nearly impossible to predict such a person to exist, given all the different cultures and subcultures around the world. But, after analyzing a few days later, I realized that I could quite possibly be “One Of The MOST Average Human’s On The Planet.”
I know this can kind of seem like an outlandish statement without any context so let’s back it up a little bit. One dark and snowy winter night 18 years ago, a baby girl was born. Her complexion resembled the snowflakes in the sky, meaning she was very white; though, she can get pretty tan in the summer. She was born an American (Que “All-American Girl” by Carrie Underwood).
Now, growing up, she didn’t have a great understanding of her ancestry and where they came from. All she knew was she was part dutch and a whole lot of German. Luckily, during the holidays, she was exposed to some of her family’s culture through authentic German cuisine and some family stories. But for the most part, that was really the only time she was exposed to that specific culture. Because of this, she didn’t think she could say that she was this culture even if historically, that’s what it would have been.
If you got lost at all, that little white American girl was me. With this idea in my head, I felt like I was lost as a girl without a culture. But that couldn’t be true? So I looked into my home life. There had to be something there that would show me what my real culture is. Turns out, I did have a culture; it just wasn’t as clear as the one I thought I was supposed to have.
Growing up, I had friends who seemed very close to their family's cultural background, unlike me. Every day they had these beautiful authentic meals and would sometimes even speak their family's native language. But, after I became really close to my friends and their families I started to love their culture like it was my own. That’s when I realized that you didn’t have to be born to a specific ethnicity to be able to relate and be a part of a specific culture. It certainly helps and gives the ability for a person to identify with it at a much deeper level, but it doesn’t mean other people can’t appreciate and identify with the culture in a different way. The closest example I can give is a person who studies abroad or lives in another country for a long time. Even though they weren’t born there they still experienced many different parts of that culture and were able to call that place home for a period of time.
Diving deeper into this revelation I realized that because of this a person can practice a multitude of different cultures. The accumulation of these different cultures a person relates to or actively practices makes up an individual's identity. Really, there is no one who is going to have the exact same identity as someone else because there are numerous cultures and subcultures that make up an individual person. So, really, to be the most average person on the planet is to be yourself.