Everybody Knows

There are lots of things out there that nobody knows the answer to, even though we now have the ability to find the answers to so many things so easily.

This got me thinking: are there things everybody knows? I’m not talking about things “everybody knows”, like whenever people have sex in a horror movie, someone is about to bite the dust; or the idea that "no good deed goes unpunished.

Instead, I mean things that literally every human knows.

For instance, everybody knows how to breathe for survival. This is like a program that’s encoded in our hardware, and we are all born knowing how to do this.

Newborn babies instinctively suck in air so that they can use the oxygen. Their brainstems monitor how much carbon dioxide is in their blood, and whenever that gets too high, signals go to their diaphragms to contract so they inhale.

Those intercostal muscles (between your ribs) work together with your diaphragm to expand your chest cavity, giving your lungs the space they need to fill up with air. Once the air passes through your nose or mouth, it heads down your trachea and into your lungs, which know how to get the oxygen out of the air.

Of course, there’s a part of breathing we can control, too. If you’re doing yoga or jiu jitsu, it makes sense to work on how quickly you breathe, so you can learn to conserve energy and move more efficiently. Breathing can also be a huge part of your thinking process, and hundreds of millions of people will meditate by paying attention only to their breathing… but not everyone knows this aspect of breathing.

Everybody “knows” emotions.

No two people experience them in the exact same way, but everyone is hard-wired to experience happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and surprise. These emotions have proven incredibly useful as survival mechanisms, guiding us away from danger and discomfort, and toward things that are (generally speaking) good for our survival.

The brain has several components responsible for making you feel emotions. The amygdala helps you detect threats, while the hypothalamus handles your body's "fight-or-flight" stress responses. Meanwhile, your prefrontal cortex works to regulate your emotions so that you don’t have to do the knee-jerk thing immediately every time.

All of this happens in the background as you begin to feel an emotion, and everyone’s brain knows how to do this.

Every body knows how to make a heart beat.

Okay, I’ll admit that I got a little clever with the language there, but it’s true: every human body is encoded with the ability to make its own heart beat. Every day, 2000 gallons of blood circulate through the average human’s body, all thanks to a natural pacemaker of sorts called the SA Node (Sinoatrial Node).

A tiny electrical signal from the SA Node triggers the top chambers of the heart (the atria) to contract, which squeezes blood down into the lower chambers (the ventricles). This signal then causes the ventricles to contract, squishing blood out into the rest of the body and out of the heart.

The right ventricle pumps blood straight into the lungs, gathering oxygen from the most direct source possible, while the left ventricle pumps blood to the rest of the body.

This is where the emotions come back into play, as the brain constantly adjusts the heart rate based on what the body needs. If we’re scared, we might need more oxygen in case we need to run away or fight back.

So, there you go: these are things everybody knows. You might notice that there aren’t any social ideas or ideas about how things should be run, or common cultural practices on this list. Instead, everything here is truly universal, and all that other stuff is optional.

Keeping that in mind is a key to helping us remember that everyone’s view of the world is unique, and that we’re not born knowing anything besides what’s biologically imperative for survival.

What are some things I missed, and what are some things everyone should know? Did I cheat with that last example? Let’s talk and think today!