Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Thirteen Ridiculous Things that We Believe Implicitly

You ever stop to think about how batshit crazy life is? I mean, seriously, do you? I don't think you do! Consider:

-Stars. We believe that, out in space, there are gigantic balls of gas that are constantly burning and putting out light and heat. So much light and heat, in fact, that you can feel it on your skin from ninety-three million miles away. They burn so bright, in fact, that we can see them from an unimaginably far distance, more distance then it is possible for the human mind to appreciate. Giant freaking balls of freaking gas that could burn you to a crisp from a million miles away.

-Black holes. Somewhere out in space is a patch of nothingness that sucks everything that is something, right down to atoms and light, into it. It could destroy the whole Earth without even pausing to digest it. It's the ultimate movie villain, except there is no possible way to fight it, just watch while it turns everything you've ever seen into spaghetti on its way to swallowing you and the rest of your kind.

-Atoms: Picture the smallest thing you could possibly see with the naked eye. What is it, a grain of sand? Dust? A flea maybe? A particularly disappointing one-night stand? Well, there are things thousands of times smaller then that. Oh, yeah, and they make up everything you will ever see in numbers greater then you could imagine. INTIMIDATED YET?

-String theory: The idea that everything you will ever see, down to levels below even the mind-boggling tininess of the atom, is made out of the same sort of stuff your cat likes to play with.

-The Big Bang: We now believe that everything you have ever seen or met or heard of, every person you've ever talked to, everything you've ever seen or conceived of and the entirety of stars and galaxies and planets and black holes that is our universe, was once part of one object smaller then the head of a flea. And nobody knows quite why this went down, just that it did.

-Pictures: The idea that you can capture a single moment, or a series of moments in the form of video, forever. Whenever you want to.

-The Internet: A series of tubes containing every asshole with access. Along with phone lines and satellite communication, this goes along with the idea that you can talk to anyone anywhere in our huge fucking world (for a small fee and provided you have their 'contact information') in less then five minutes. EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, from your next door neighbor to fucking Nepal.

-Genetic engineering and DNA: The idea that there is a basic 'code', like computer code, for everything living on this planet AND WE KNOW HOW TO HACK IT. That frightens the pants off of me, I don't know about you. But, damn! We can hack nature and put together whatever constructs we want! Could there be anything more scary?

-Nanobots: Yes. There are robots that can live inside your body. That's really all that needs to be said.

-Space shuttles, spaceships, satellites, etc: We got people off this planet. WE PUT A MOTHERFUCKING MAN ON THE MOTHERFUCKING MOON. The moon! That little dot up there in the sky, we walked on that! Are you kidding me? We sent people up in SPACE? We got them off of this entire freaking planet?

-Nuclear weapons: The idea that there is at this very moment, scattered around the planet, enough destructive power to end all human life. All of us. Everyone. The lady who bags your groceries at the supermarket, your favorite celebrity or football star, some scientist freezing his ass off in Antarctica, you, me, everyone you've ever met. And not just us right now, but everything we have ever done. All the achievements of humankind survive right now only due to the fact that we remember them. All the inventions, all the philosophers, all the lovers, all the comedies would all be gone as if they'd never existed. Think about it.

-The Internet again. With nothing more than a click of your mouse, you can: buy or sell every commercial product imaginable, talk to a friend, order a pizza, sound off on some issue or other *cough*, tell someone you love them, listen to music, watch a movie, help a starving child, read this post, do your homework, get over your ex, whatever. Take a minute to think about that. Really, really do.

Now:

Having just blown your mind with twelve scientific concepts/horrifying realities, I'm going to take a step back and blow it again in a different way.

Love.

Yeah, love. Wanna make something of it?

No, but seriously. The idea that...
When you see that special person it just lifts you up inside, no matter how you were feeling. When the two of you are together and there really is a together, when you meet each other's needs like nobody else ever could. When you see that girl or boy and this warm, golden feeling just fills you up inside like you could skip over the moon, holding their hand beside you. When a smile from them, or a conversation, or a kiss, is all it takes to make you happy. Really, truly happy, deep down inside where there's a light in all the corners of your heart where light never used to shine. And knowing that they're just as happy as you are and feel the way that you feel.

Doesn't the fact that we as people can feel that feeling, that kind of unconditional, passionate love, just blow you away?

1 comment:

Rory said...

hey! i like what this did in my head! it was cool to read something that just straight up appreciated the world without trying to figure it all out. sometimes it's nice to just *consider*

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