All living things have DNA. And whether it comes from you, a pea plant, or your pet rat, it’s all the same molecule. It’s the order of the letters in the code that makes each organism different.
Plants, like all other known living organisms, pass on their traits using DNA. Plants however are unique from other living organisms in the fact that they have chloroplasts. Like mitochondria, chloroplasts have their own DNA.
We all came from a common ancestor. In other words, we all started out with the same DNA way back when. The different animals we see today are due to lots of small changes that have happened in living things since then.
Many small DNA changes are kept when they help the animal live better in its environment. Eventually, there are enough changes that it is a whole new animal.
Your DNA is 99% identical to a chimpanzee’s. And it’s 95% identical to a monkey’s. And why you are about 79% identical to a mouse and even 36% identical to a little fruit fly!
In fact, you even do some things a bacterium does. You have a membrane enclosing your cells. And you both have to use oxygen and sugar to make energy. So your DNA is 7% identical to that bacterium!
But if we all started out with the same DNA, how did we end up with any differences at all? The short answer is evolution.
All living things have lots in common with each other.
DNA has the instructions for making a creature. This DNA is split up into many different sections called genes.
Each gene has a specific job. One gene might have the instructions for making something that carries oxygen in our blood. Another might have the instructions that give a person brown eyes.
No matter how different all living things may look, we all have things in common. Monkeys, people, lizards, frogs, etc. all need to breathe, see, move around, etc.
These common activities are the result of common genes. So creatures that have to do similar things will often share similar DNA.
The stringy stuff in the test tube is DNA. But you can’t tell which one of these organisms it came from just by looking at it. That’s because DNA looks exactly the same in every organism on Earth.
All humans have the same genes arranged in the same order. And more than 99.9% of our DNA sequence is the same. But the few differences between us (all 1.4 million of them!) are enough to make each one of us unique. On average, a human gene will have 1-3 bases that differ from person to person. These differences can change the shape and function of a protein, or they can change how much protein is made, when it’s made, or where it’s made.
Mitakuye Oyasin refers not just to the interconnectedness of all that exists – plant, animal, mineral – but also includes elements such as rain, wind, and lightning. Honoring all phenomena in this way allows us to appreciate not just the sky, nature, and living beings, but the rhythms and cycles of the natural world. We can tap into the Lakota Sioux concept of “Mitakuye Oyasin,” or “all my relations,” and appreciate the fact that everything is connected to everything else, making all that is truly one family. From the origins of the universe to the evolution of life on earth, we can celebrate our shared origins.”
I was asked to answer that question and in fact, this is an important and complex question. There are many things that are important factors that I cannot live without.
Most of what I definitively cannot live without are my body’s physical necessities to survive, such as oxygen, clean water, nutrients, warmth and coolness, protection from the elements, movement, sleep, etc.. Without all of these and others, my life would be short and miserable. So, I am careful to honor these requirements by being mindful that I havethem of good quality in my life allowing me to maintain sound physical health.
For because of my body’s healthy balance, with a good physical foundation and salutary environment, and thequality of my emotions and thoughts being uplifted and positive, I am much less likely to become depressed, anxious, etc.. My life will not be constricted and unhappy. Also, in this regard, I can not live well without the wisdom of maintaining a balanced perspective on life and my situation in it.
And then there is the spiritual social aspect. By spiritual I mean intuitive knowing that everything is interconnected and interdependent within the mysterious universe. A quote from Albert Einstein expresses this well, ‘The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as aII serious endeavor in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. Ta sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our mind can not grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me, it suffices to wonder about these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.’ This perspective prevents any alienation since I know that all the creatures on this earth are a part of the larger universal life force that we share together. All beings on all levels want to thrive, we are all intertwined in the web of life. We are all together.
This brings me to the point of how I came to know and value that experience of oneness. Well, when I was younger and with many extended camping trips with friends, in the wilderness, I came to see not only the awesomeness and vastness of the universe but also my companionship, on this planet, with all other sentient beings including the forests, plants, etc.. Then, finally, after a long search toclarify that intuition for me, first with awareness training and then the meditative and ethical Buddha’s Path and Satori, I came to clearly recognize the oneness of everything with the subsequent empathy and compassion for all life of this world. This insight I cannot live well without.
So, I cannot live without the requirements of life which means having shelter, and other necessities that give my physical needssupport and basic comfort to thrive. I cannot live happily and satisfied without my knowing my innate inter-connection with everything alive on this earth. I cannot live happily without simple expressions of my interests and activities. Finally, I cannot live well without actively expressing my feelings of connectedness and openness, on various levels, with other people and beings, measured by the available and possible reciprocity.
Overall, besides the requirements of the survival of my physical life, the foundation of my happiness and satisfaction and guiding principle is my spirituality of feeling the interconnectedness and interdependency of all life on this planet. This is always a satisfaction I know and honor through my positive interactions in living. Rodger R Ricketts Psy.D. 2021
We are all Interconnected even with the Universe 