So we're all just exactly alike.

How is it that I can meet someone who is three years older than me, grew up across the country under completely different circumstances, and yet we still have the same humor, like the same things, speak the same slang, and like the same people? 


I've encountered this phenomenon a few times, where I meet someone who, I feel is my equivalent comedically and in relation to social views. I've come to realize that this is what mass communication and mass culture has done to us. This is the democratization of information. Sometimes I am shocked by what appears to be someone else "reading my thoughts." However they are really just thinking the same thing, because our brains have been influenced by the same factors. We were fed the same information, and are therefore processing in through the same filter.  


If our perception of reality is made up of our learning and experiences, then any two given two people who share many influences and experiences (ie reading the same magazines, seeing the same movies, following the same blogs, watching the same television) will have relatively similar reactions to the things they face. 


Of course, there will always be certain variables making each person an individual, and there will certainly remain to be people who have stark differences, but as my generation ages, and as I move around to different cities and countries, I notice that most of the people I meet all seem to share some common qualities. Be this a good or bad thing, the jury is still out.