How are we here?
My friends and I in high school would have a running joke about the sheer amount of things that we couldn't believe were real. Whenever we'd get bored in a class, we'd add to the shared Google Doc with whatever blew our minds in that moment. The list grew to hundreds and hundreds of entires, some a little odd and others quite intriguing.
It made us realize, how the heck are we here? How does everything we know of just happen? There are so many things out there that just don't seem feasible, but they're there. It turns quite philosophical, but it's fascinating to think about.
Just slow down for a moment and zoom out. We are on a floating rock, in the middle of never-ending nothingness. We evolved into conscious beings. All the miracles that needed to happen for us to get here. It wows me every time. Humans are just an intricate makeup of atoms that allow us to think, speak, feel, hear, touch. It will never not be crazy to me.
We had plenty more on the list. As you drive, you realize that the thousands of miles of highway had to be made by people. We are able to talk to somebody on the other side of the world. Our unique human genetic information is stored in the DNA. The more you think about these things, the more unlikely they seem. We have to understand how our existence here is a miracle.
These types of thoughts really do make me appreciate everything around me. How lucky I am to experience all of this with billions of other people. It will never not blow my mind that we are conscious, alive, breathing here on some planet in the middle of the universe. I'm just grateful to be here with all of you.