
What it means to have an impressive personality?
Does it mean to have better communication skills, better looks and better charisma? Or does it mean to have better world knowledge and better ways of handling problems in one’s life?
These questions make me draw certain comparisons between the way we think and the way our ancestors used to.
In Sapiens, the author Harari draws a deep insight into the world that existed when our species had the ability to survive out of the 6 different species that tried to co-exist in different locations on our planet for a brief period.
Sapiens made their way because of the outstanding qualities of their brains and their ability to procreate, either among themselves or with our other cousins, resulting in present-day by products, us, which is nothing but a mix of DNA.
They had an innate ability to communicate through a particular linguistic ability, and not using any dialect. [There’s no concrete research on what kind of language evolved them and made them superior over other species.]
Man, as always, has been a social animal from decades and this distinct behavior sets us apart from many other species of animals. We’ve evolved in terms of everything and we can communicate better.
Ironically, the social nature of ours has made us constricted within certain social norms that we think define us.
But, as often debated, one of the things that would have evolved us was the ability to constantly change ourselves under the pressures of changes and uncertainties. This very trait, which was noticed in our primitive ancestors, sadly, has gone astray.
What made us so reluctant to change?
As one of my friends said that for her impressive personalities mean someone who would be good in everything in their lives, and the moment you see them, you feel like talking to them. They should have a charismatic aura around them and when you see them, you get a positive vibe.
Often we tend to look at the bigger qualities in men and women, which sound impressive to us. As far as I can see, the tiny qualities that we had as an evolving animal in the past are far more impressive.
One such impressive quality is the act of being resilient. It’s missing in most humans.
Resilience develops with years and with the power of mature thinking. However, any sort of abrasion in your life, regardless of it’s passed on to you by your parents or by your close friends or by your lover, is often hard to spring back into a healthy wound.
It’s often said that a real man is someone who knows how to behave in his troubled times, showing his real self to the world and people around. But, again, most men have failed in that segment; thus failing to show resilience in a true form. The word has been misused by many too. This applies to a drunken husband beating up his wife before their children because he had a bad day at work and he’s unable to cope with his life or him abusing his daughters when they start developing a mind of their own.
Our primitives had a hard life. We have it too!
Coming back to small impressive qualities, we see those often but tend to overlook.
A dog on the roadside who scratches his arms, oblivious to everything, regardless of the vehicles passing by and hitting its tail, has an impressive personality that sets it apart from us. The dog is living in the moment, i.e., scratching its arms and back freely.
A teacher from my school, who used to write down on my notebook what she taught for a week in the class, while I was cuddled up in my home suffering from high fever and cough, is still an impressive personality to me. I still remember her name because I don’t want to forget it.
A bus conductor who I see regularly has an amazing calmness and persona around him. He rarely talks or screams instead he whistles in a natural way, occasionally to indicate the bus driver when the bus needs to be stopped or started. This is something that I haven’t seen in any other bus conductors, and it’s a rare trait that reminds me of the ability to communicate through sign language, which was found in our ancient cousins.
According to Harari, monkeys and many other animals still communicate through sounds and sign languages.
We, as social animals, talk a lot!
The amount of time we spend talking and on social media has been estimated to be huge; it’s believed that if a person can use that amount of time wisely, they can finish reading over 400 books in a year.
I could neither establish a social connection with many people around, nor could I finish reading over 5 books in a year. Does it make me ‘less human’? And leaves me with ‘0’ personality. If yes, I’m impressed with it, and I’ll live with it.
Photo by Beth Teutschmann on Unsplash