It's a miracle that you're reading this. You and I have been in the making for 14 billion years. Plus 51 years in my particular case. We are but two of the almost 8 billion people on this tiny planet, yet somehow we now share something almost 8 billion people minus two can not share.
source: PxHere
Every atom on our planet has been here for the entire duration of it's existence, the occasional asteroid impact aside, so the oxygen atoms you breathe in with every breath, have been inside many other living organisms; hence the popular saying that we breathe the same air as dinosaurs did many millions of years ago. And the atoms that make up all life, were formed in the hearts of dead stars. Physicist Lawrence Krauss once famously stated:
"The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today."
source: Wikiquote
Atoms are constantly shifting and rearranging, have done so for 14 billion years, and after all this time, through a slow process of evolution, have been enabled to be arranged in such a way that together they form, alongside countless other things, you and me, two sentient beings sharing thoughts about the miraculous 14 billion year journey that has led us here. Also if you happen to believe that God created us and everything else, I dare say that this doesn't take away from, may even add to the miraculousness of it all. Whatever we believe to be true about our ultimate origins, there's no denying the miracle that is conscious life.
Miracles happen every day because every day is a miracle in itself, because you happen every day and because the trees you see every day once started as a tiny seed. And we, human beings, are the most fantastic creatures ever to grace this universe. We're still young; on a timescale 14 billion years long, our presence accounts for a couple of tens or hundreds of thousands of them. And there's a good chance we're not the only, or even the most technologically advanced species; many scientists believe it would be a miracle if we were the only intelligent lifeforms in the universe... But we've just established that miracles are the stuff of every day, so we should keep that in mind as a good possibility too; we might be the only arrangement of atoms that's capable of wondering about how these atoms got arranged in such an exquisite manner as to produce conscious agents, thinkers, poets, artists, mothers, fathers, gamers, bloggers, inventors and us.
Image by Felix Mittermeier - source: PxHere
Life is a miracle. The universe is a miracle. You are a miracle. And my wish is that you know that, really know that. Not just to take in this information, but to really feel the truth of it; your conscious experience of this universe is the only truth that's absolutely undeniable. This has been captured in the famous "I think therefore I am" or "cogito ergo sum" if you want to sound scholarly, but Descartes had it slightly wrong; it should be "I experience therefore I am". On a material plane you're intimately connected to the universe you inhabit, through the entirety of space-time, as you are on a conscious plane by thinking about your place in the cosmos.
If you ever have the chance, try this: rent a boat and take it far away from city lights. Kill all lights on the boat too. Then just lay on your back and gaze into the black starry night and imagine you're weightless; the gentle rocking of the boat (let's hope it is gentle) will aid with that, trust me. I've had this experience only once, as I've always lived in the city, and maybe that's why it had such a profound effect on my state of consciousness, but what I felt, for a brief moment, was a feeling of being connected to it all. A moment of deep understanding of how absolutely everything is connected to and dependent upon everything else. Just like every human is connected to and dependent upon every other human, now, in the past and into the future.
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What a great masterpiece and connected with my thinking. :)
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Thanks so much for the kind words @chesatochi! 😊
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