The one who birthed me, the one I’ve committed my soul to, and the one that came from me. The three most important people in my life. There are many others, but these three are the center of my being. I’ve known this ever since my baby was born, but today I wondered… is this typical for most people? What about throughout human history? Perhaps people anchor their lives around other types of relationships, like best friend, grandparent, chieftain or pastor? Are these relationship trends influenced by culture or age?

Questions like these are seemingly unknowable. But they’re worthwhile. And of course, kinship structures and primary social bonds have been studied in depth, by social scientists, anthropologists, evolutionary psychologists. Many scholars (but by no means a consensus) would probably agree “the most important people in your life” is a phenomenon we share across time, space, and culture. If a 7th century muslim in Medina and a 17th century Puritan in New England both treasure the same bonds, doesn’t that tell us something about our species? When medieval Chinese poets and modern Kenyan herders both revere their mothers, fathers, spouses, and children, it reveals a deep truth: our loyalties across history have remained the same.

Billions of people across the Earth have shared the same important relationships. It is yet one more piece of evidence that we are all one group, that we are diverse yet more similar than we are different, and that our sharing of the same wondrous planet makes us not just cohabitants but compatriots: humans who cherish the same loved ones in our hearts. Can we leverage this basic truth to develop one collective planet-wide consciousness?