Is blood really thicker than water?

There is a popular German proverb "blood is thicker than water" and it means that, blood relations are supposed to come first in your life, they are supposed to be more important than people you are not related to by blood. Such as friendship. It means bonds of family are more stronger than bonds of unrelated people.

What is going through my mind at the moment is, whether is this really true? Whether blood is really thicker than water? Especially in this time and age. I was thinking about this the whole night. This was in my mind and this is the reason why I couldn't sleep as well. This proverb insinuates that relatives stick together and relatives will do more for you than others.

I am debating in my mind whether to do this argumentatively or whether to be biased and write this blog entry in the opinionated fashion. My heart says this is not true. Blood is not thicker than water, especially these days. My experience says this too. However, the logic behind this proverb is something that should be explored and written about, my mind tells me. Anyway a good writer explores both sides of the coin and then states his/her opinion, instead of completely ignoring the other side of something.

For this proverb to work, the word "CONNECTION" comes in to the equation. Without connection, this proverb would crumble in to dust and fade away. Any relation is based on connection. You are connected to your mother for instance, by birth and also if you are lucky, you have a connection of trust and love. The word relationship only has substance on the basis of the word connection. No connection equals to no relationship. No relationship would just be like, you don't know the person.

So to a certain extent we have established how important CONNECTION is. What my point is and what point I am trying to make is, connection is more important than whether you have blood ties with a person or not. If you are related by blood, but are not connected with the person, you and the person don't understand each other, in your time of need, the blood relative doesn't help you out, then how can the proverb 'blood is thicker than water' work?

In this case this proverb has already been disproved to a certain extent. Blood is not thicker than water, not always any way.

I have heard cases of brothers killing one another, or brother killing his sister or son killing his dad to gain money/inheritance. I have heard cases of fathers beating their daughters, I have heard cases about a brother not helping his siblings out in need, about offspring completely cutting themselves off from their parents and letting them fend for themselves in old age. I have heard so many stories and have experienced so much, that now my heart just doesn't believe that this could be true. That blood could be thicker than water.

Personally speaking, I have experienced so much and it is always one friend, one stranger, one person who is not related to me in anyway by blood, that has helped me out. I don't know about you, but I always feel that no matter how much we love our parents and siblings, there is a moment where we just want to forget everything and everyone and be alone. We are annoyed by them. They are not of help to us. Relations in times of need, doesn't mean they have to do something physically or materialistically to help us, it also means that they have to help us emotionally in our times of need, when we need someone to be there for us and listen to our problems etc and help us get out of them.

Sometimes blood relations fail in this. Sometimes blood relations cannot be there for us when we need someone to be there for us and listen to our concerns. This is why people tweet these days or even write blog entries. To vent their thoughts and to reach out to strangers who might. This is why we make friends with people, so that we can make them a part of our lives and be connected to them. So that it doesn't matter if we are not connected by blood ties, we are connected by a friendship bond and this is why we get close to certain people. We connect with them so well.

These are the people that are there for us in our times of need. Times of need doesn't have to mean something huge, it could also mean something as small as making us smile or talking to us and listening to our concerns. However, I have seen people helping other people out in a major way as well in their times of need, even though they are not blood related. I have seen people being ignored by their own family relatives and strangers - and by strangers here, I mean people who are not blood tied - coming in and helping them out.

I myself feel connected to certain people so much, that sometimes I wish they were my family. I wish someone was my sister. We all have this wish in our minds and hearts, about certain people that we connect and bond with so well. A best friend perhaps, who is even though not connected to us by blood, still holds an essential place in our hearts. We still think of that person as a sister or a brother in our minds. I have felt this way about someone. That this person should have been my sister. Then I thought, no she should not. Why? My current siblings who are related to me by blood are not connected to me at all.

I hardly talk to my brother and sisters. I am a quiet person and I just stick to my friends, be it virtual or in real life, for interaction. If she was my sister and a blood relative, I probably would not have felt so connected to her, like I do right now. So it is good in a way that we have these certain people in our lives, who are there for us, who talk to us, who make us feel better, who make us smile and they do all of this despite the fact that they are strangers.

Also don't you get the satisfaction, when a stranger connects so well to you? You always beam when you talk to them. You smile when you find similarities with them, because of the reason that they are not related to you. You think in your mind "hey, she's not my sister or something, but hell we sure are similar and I love talking to her."

There are some times some connections like that, that keep us going. This is why Darwin said that man is a social animal. We need these social connections with people and sometimes these connections become so strong, they overcome the blood relations and help us out more. Blood is thicker than water proverb, might have worked in the olden times when families were close, when there were wars between tribes and clans, and everyone had to depend on their relatives for support. These days with technology so advanced and logistics too, everyone's family has spread. Some have relatives all over the world. It is no longer the case that people live under the same roof or same city for that matter.

When a person is alone in a foreign city and has no blood relatives around and in that person's time of need, their friend helps them out and that also in a big way. Whose stronger in connection and bond then? Relatives or friends? People are so amazing these days and I am truly impressed by to what extent few people go to help out their friends and I am seeing a huge example in front of my eyes these days. I can't write about that example because it is personal, but let me just tell you, it is blessing that friends are there for you and help you, when you don't have relatives to count on or fall back upon.

For me, most important is a connection with someone. Be it that the person is a blood relation or not. If you work on building that connection, you will have a relationship with the person and if you continue on, you just might be lucky and blessed enough to have such a connection with a stranger, which will prove the proverb wrong. The in your head you can say, oh so blood is not thicker after all.






Comments

  1. I totally agree with this aisha... Even I feel like some unknown strange people go to that extent to help me to which my blood relatives might never even think of going.. Relationships are through better understanding. If my friend understands me better than my sister, than undoubtedly he will be more connected with me than my sister.. |Good work

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  2. I agree with your comment. Understand is crucial too but I deliberately left that out from the blog entry, because in a way I was trying to disprove the proverb and focusing on connecting with someone more, albeit they are not blood related to us.

    I also feel sometimes some person comes along, that is not even blood related to us but we get along with them so well, we love talking to them, it doesn't even feel like they are not related!! THEY UNDERSTAND US AND connect so well with us and do help us out in our time of need. Which could be when we are down and we need someone to talk to.

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