Lets get Back to our Roots...

...our African roots, that is

Life Complications ~ Part 15

Now, I've never been to Africa before, but from the documentaries I've seen, it seems like a pretty awesome place (that is, if you ignore the lack of water and food and shelter that probably more than half the population must face). Giraffes in your backyard sounds...pretty fun!

But apparently...

We're all Africans!

(not that there's anything wrong with that of course. It feels nice to belong to more than one country, doesn't it?)

Remember this one?
It's the really loud basement tenant

And yes, there's a theory behind all of this.

It goes roughly like thus:

1. Humans lived in Africa

2. Lion lived in Africa

3. Lion RAWRed

4. Humans were terrified!

5. Humans moved OUT of Africa

6. Humans migrated into Asia and Europe

7. Humans lived!

8. Lion starved...at least until they met the zebra.

All of that took place roughly 2 million years ago.

Now, of course, the humans who lived in Africa had rather dark skin, which was to be expected, since living in such harsh sunlight would have caused their skin to turn darker (skin pigmentation) which would then protect these humans from the harmful UV rays and still allow enough light to penetrate through in order for them to "absorb" vitamin D from the sun (om nom nom, very tasty!).

However, with the dark skin suitable for living in Africa, these humans, after moving to other parts of the world, could no longer get enough vitamin D into their diets because their skin was too dark for them to absorb the sunlight in colder/less sunny areas.

And one can only eat so much meat and eggs...

(and no, vitamin pills were not yet invented)

Thus, to fix this dilemma, these humans had an awesome idea. They will simply...turn lighter!

As you can imagine, getting one's skin to turn lighter is easier said than done. It took the better half of the next few thousand (million) years.

But still, it was quite successful.

With the lighter skin, these humans who have moved to other parts of the world with less sunlight (aka: Europe and Asia) evolved to become beings of lighter skin tones which allowed them to take in all the vitamin D they needed.

Yay humans!

They used to be your next-door neighbours.
You should go back and visit sometime soon.

Its somewhat ironic though, especially since mankind has such long histories of racism, and the feeling of superiority over other beings of other skin tones. Apparently, those with darker skin tones were regarded as workers and "un-elegant" people because their more tanned skin reminded society of working under the sun in harsh weather, like farming. Until quite recently, it was very attractive (and it still is) to be pale in skin tone. Although nowadays, people are starting to understand more and racism is slowly on the decline.

(the amount of people wanting to be tanned, either naturally or artificially, is also growing. Go figure.)

But as you can see, different skin tones only shows that the people came from different parts of the world and lived under different levels of UV light. We're really all the same, inside and out!

So next time something even slightly racist pops into your mind. Take a moment and consider what you're saying. By insulting others, you're really insulting yourself.

Now, if only the world was flat...then we wouldn't have such a problem!

Today's Surroundings: Shakespeare...lots and lots of Shakespeare

Today's Object: Glass Jar

Today's Feelings: Alien Green

PS: should "vitamin" be capitalized?

NOTE: A theory, being a theory, is not 100% proven and may be completely imaginary for all we know.

But on the other hand, you may be completely imaginary too...

Do you trust your existence?