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EPIC MOMENT #16
I’m going to quote Neil Pasricha on this one, the guy who inspired the epic moments list.
“You used to be a sperm. Check out the period at the end of this sentence. That tiny little dot is around 600 microns wide. When you were a sperm you were about 40 microns wide. You had a great life as a sperm but always felt incomplete. The truth is you weren’t whole until you met an egg. And then you two began a nine month project to make a cool new version of you. It took a while but you grew arms and legs and eyeballs and lungs.
For a sperm to meet an egg it means your mom met your dad. But it’s not just them. Think about how many people had to meet, fall in love, and make love for you to be here. Here’s the answer: A lot. Like a lot a lot.
Before they had you, none of your ancestors drowned in a pond, got strangled by a python, or skied into a tree. None of your ancestors choked on a peach pit, were trampled by buffalo, or got their tie stuck in an assembly line. None of your ancestors was a virgin.
You are the most modern, brightest spark of years and years and years of survivors who all had to meet each other in order to eventually make you.
You’re pretty lucky all those people met, fell in love, made love, had babies, and raised them into other people who did it all over again. This happened over and over and over again for you to be here. Look around the plane, coffee shop, or park right now. Look at your husband snoring in bed, your girlfriend watching TV, or your sister playing in the backyard. You are surrounded by lucky people. They are all the result of long lines of survivors.
So you’re a survivor, too. You’re the latest and greatest. You’re the top of the line. You’re the very best nature has to offer.
But there’s more...
Of the millions of places we’ve ever seen in the universe it appears as though Earth is the only place that can support life. The only place! On this planet Earth, the only one in the giant dark blackness where anything can live, we ended up being humans.
We are the only species on the only life-giving rock capable of love and magic, architecture and agriculture, bicycles and democracy, airplanes and highway lanes. We got surf boards, buffets and roller coaster rides, guitar solos, bubble wrap and blockbuster movies.
We got all that. But we only get a hundred years to enjoy it. Every single person you know will be dead in a hundred years. Life is so great that we only get a tiny moment to enjoy everything we see. And that moment is right now.”
Photo by Francesca Ruberto