For a long time, people have quietly wondered:
Why has there been conflict, conquest, violence, and crime?
What makes people turn against one another?
The deeper we look through history, science, psychology, and
our own shared experiences, the closer we come to a profound,
yet familiar realization: Human nature is not one of harm.
The root cause of all harm has always been inner disconnection:
Confusion, chronic unexamined stress, overwhelmed inner
world, and a lack of inner dialogue—what can collectively be
named frustration. Who we are, underneath all circumstances,
is a caring, cooperative, connected expression of life itself. And
love, far from being an ideal, is the most natural state of life. This
is what this book is written to convey.
Along the way, voices of kindness, cultures that honored
connection, individuals who saw clearly even when the world
around them did not yet, and nature itself, will all be explored—
revealing clear signs of this truth, even during the hardest times.
The roots of conflict, the circumstances of harm, and their
deeper patterns will be explained.
And the remarkable progress of the present will be revealed.
One so grand, that once noticed, can no longer be overlooked.
If the words in this book help confirm what has already been
sensed—if it gently clarifies what once felt confusing—if it is
able to help even a single fellow being understand themselves—
then the work has already fulfilled its purpose.
That is what makes it important.
Before Understanding
Before we reach the truth of our nature, we must first
understand the story of the world, beginning with the part of
humankind. The earliest of humanity began with solitary families
in the paleolithic era, gathering and hunting together, cut off
from the rest of the people. Eventually, humanity branched into
many structures, such as bands, clans, tribes, city-states,
kingdoms, and empires. This was not a journey of separate
beings ruling over one another—but a journey through
frustration, migration, and survival, toward understanding. And
when the true history of people is revealed, the illusion of
separation is eradicated.
When we look back at history, we may often imagine nations as
timeless. We picture “Romans”, “Greeks”, or “Turks”, as if they
were entirely separate groups. But the truth is far more
interconnected: none of these identities existed in the way we
imagine. What we call nations were always mixtures of people,
living, adapting, intermarrying, trading, influencing, adopting,
governing, learning, and constantly diversifying their languages
and cultures through interaction.
Not as sides—but as humans.
When historical knowledge is filled with gaps,
misunderstandings can easily occur, creating misconceptions
about humankind. A good example of that can be found in the
Romani People. For centuries, the Romani were considered
people without origin. They were called “Gypsies”, based on the
mistaken belief that they came from Egypt. They were also
called Athinganoi, a Greek word once used as a name for a local
sect but wrongly applied to them. In reality, the Romani
originated much farther east, in northern India—most likely in
Punjab and Rajasthan. Their language is Indo-Aryan, closely
related to Hindi and Punjabi, and the word Rom itself means
“human”.
Between the 6th and 11th centuries, groups of Romani migrated
westward, some as artisans, some as musicians, others fleeing
wars. Wherever they went, they were renamed, misunderstood,
and often discriminated against. Yet their identity was never
“nationless”. The Romani people are one of history’s clearest
examples of how misunderstanding and confusion-driven
prejudice can erase the truth about people’s origin.
The Roman Empire is another example of such historical
misunderstandings. It is often imagined as a vast power
spreading its own culture across others. But Rome began as just
another small city-state on the Italian peninsula. It expanded
slowly, through conflict and alliances, into something much
larger—a geographical “mosaic” of human diversity.
Along the way, Rome was shaped by every culture it
encountered:
Etruscans influenced Roman technology, politics, and religion.
Greeks gave Rome philosophy, art, literature, and mythology.
Egyptians contributed to its religion and symbolism.
Eastern civilizations added their traditions as Rome expanded
into Asia Minor and beyond.
Even Rome’s architecture—columns, temples, statues of
believed gods—was borrowed and reworked from Greece and
other neighbors.
What we call “Roman culture” was never a single culture
imposed on others—it was a constant act of absorption,
diversification, and transformation.
Another example can be found in the Vlachs. The Balkans before
Rome, were a patchwork of people: Greeks in the south, Illyrians
in the west, Thracians in the east, Dacians to the north, and
Macedonians in between. None were “nations” in the modern
sense—but developing, diverse groups of people. When Rome
conquered the region, its soldiers and settlers mingled with
these groups. Over time, the locals adopted Latin, which
gradually evolved into new languages. One of these, was Vlach
(Aromanian), a Romance language spoken by communities who
came to be called Vlachs. The Vlachs were Balkan people who
had been Romanized, carrying both local and Latin heritage. And
even after the empire ceased to be, they remained. Their origin
caused confusion as some called them Romanians, some
Romans, while others claimed they were the founders of
Greece. Yet their story reveals that what we call today “ethnic
groups”, are the result of centuries of mixing. Not distinct,
separate cultures, isolated from the rest of the people.
The Ottoman Empire is another striking case. Its roots go back to
Central Asia, where, about 2,500 years ago, many groups of
people shared a single language. The word Turk was of that
language, which is why it was later named “proto-Turkic”. The
word originally meant “strong” or “human". It was not an
ethnicity. Over centuries, these groups spread across Asia, and
their language branched into Oghuz, Kipchak, Karluk, and
others.
The Oghuz branch moved westward. They were called “Turks" by
other people, and they eventually adopted the name. In the 11th
century, the Seljuks, an Oghuz dynasty, conquered Byzantium at
Manzikert (1071), leading in their migration and settlement in
Anatolia. Their state was even called the Sultanate of Rum—
literally meaning “the Roman Sultanate”. Later, from one of their
successor states, the Ottomans arose. By 1453, they had
captured Constantinople, and built an empire that included
Anatolia, the Balkans, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East.
But this was not an empire of a single culture either. It was a
continuation of centuries of mixing—a multiethnic structure that
absorbed Byzantine, Arab, Persian, and Balkan influences,
creating a shift in the existing mosaic of the world. Modern
Turkey, founded in 1923, came only after the empire’s collapse,
when nationalism forged a new identity out of this diverse past,
choosing a name that came not from ethnicity—but from
diversity.
All these conflicts and shifts in administration reveal the
historical frustration of people before the state of
understanding.
But beyond that, beyond culture, ethnicity, and separation, what
history reveals—is one, single humanity.
Diversity is not separation. And humanity is humanity.