HOW DID I GET HERE?
I've been watching space documentaries on PBS and NOVA compulsively for weeks now, as well as NASA videos of news conferences about the rover on Mars, Curiosity. I want to know one thing before I leave this world: How did things come about that I am here?
How far back do I go? The Big Bang seems a bit too far back. But the planets and stars and galaxies formed. The earth was formed when asteroids crashed together, getting bigger and bigger, held together with gravity. Finally, our very own Goldilocks planet formed. It was in just the right spot, not too far and not too close to the sun. It was a big lifeless volcanic molten mess, until the elements for life came together.
Water. Organic molecules, formed from amino acids. Energy, from the Sun. Add in several billion years, and you have microbes. Another billion years, and you have dinosaurs, for 250 million years. A meteor slams into the earth and wipes out the dinosaurs. Another billion years, and you have animals, fish, insects and birds, roaming and flying over the green and blue earth.
After millions of more years, people evolved, from tiny upright walking humanoid chimp like creatures. In Africa, at one point, the entire human population on earth had dwindled down to only 2500 people. Times were tough. Later, one woman becomes the mother of everyone to come. She is the Eve to the future mankind. 180,000 years after her, I am her descendant, along with everyone else on earth.
How far back do I go? The Big Bang seems a bit too far back. But the planets and stars and galaxies formed. The earth was formed when asteroids crashed together, getting bigger and bigger, held together with gravity. Finally, our very own Goldilocks planet formed. It was in just the right spot, not too far and not too close to the sun. It was a big lifeless volcanic molten mess, until the elements for life came together.
Water. Organic molecules, formed from amino acids. Energy, from the Sun. Add in several billion years, and you have microbes. Another billion years, and you have dinosaurs, for 250 million years. A meteor slams into the earth and wipes out the dinosaurs. Another billion years, and you have animals, fish, insects and birds, roaming and flying over the green and blue earth.
After millions of more years, people evolved, from tiny upright walking humanoid chimp like creatures. In Africa, at one point, the entire human population on earth had dwindled down to only 2500 people. Times were tough. Later, one woman becomes the mother of everyone to come. She is the Eve to the future mankind. 180,000 years after her, I am her descendant, along with everyone else on earth.
AND SO, HERE I AM.
I traced my ancestors in my own personal family back to the 1600's in the United States. They all came here from England, all but the one grandmother who was a native American. Her ancestors came across the land bridge that joined what is now Alaska to what is now Mongolia.
Before all this, my ancestors were in Africa, and later moved up out of Africa, around 40,000 years ago, first to the Mediterrain region, and later to western Europe, Eastern Europe, mating with Neanderthals and the mysterious Denisovans, then making their way to the new world. And now, I am the last of the line, so to speak. My DNA is a living fossil. My cells, the stuff they are made of, is the same stuff the stars are made of. This is my home, my earth, my solar system, my galaxy, my universe, my past and futere and my present. .
It is not mine, it IS ME.
Before all this, my ancestors were in Africa, and later moved up out of Africa, around 40,000 years ago, first to the Mediterrain region, and later to western Europe, Eastern Europe, mating with Neanderthals and the mysterious Denisovans, then making their way to the new world. And now, I am the last of the line, so to speak. My DNA is a living fossil. My cells, the stuff they are made of, is the same stuff the stars are made of. This is my home, my earth, my solar system, my galaxy, my universe, my past and futere and my present. .
It is not mine, it IS ME.
WHERE DOES IT ALL END?
I'm talking boundaries now. Does it end at my skin? Does it end when I die? Does it end at the end of time? What is the boundary. I admit it, I've studied Buddhism.
I think maybe the Buddhists have something. I am refering to the idea that All is One. The universe is me, I am the universe.
That goes for time, too. I am the planets, the sun, the water, the sky, the dinosaurs, the.....well, the everything. And I am the beginning and the end. I think I just lost you.
This particular little conciousness I am trapped in at the moment.....thinks it is an individual, but it isn't. It's a little part of a big
thing. The stuff my body is made out of, the same stuff as the rest of the stuff in the universe is made from, the same chemicals, proves that.
So the question really isn't how did I get here. I belong here, here is what I AM. The real question is what is this little conciousness that thinks it's separate, from space, time, others, the planet stars and universe. Freud called it the Ego.
Is the illusion this; that I am one with all there is? Or is the illusion that I am separate from all there is?
I rose up out of a long process, walked around on the surface of earth for a while, and sank back into the primordial slime I came from.
And while I walked around on the earth, during that time, I had thoughts, and wonders, and I wrote out this. I expressed myself.
And that's what the universe has always done. Expressed itself. It is the conciousness.
I think maybe the Buddhists have something. I am refering to the idea that All is One. The universe is me, I am the universe.
That goes for time, too. I am the planets, the sun, the water, the sky, the dinosaurs, the.....well, the everything. And I am the beginning and the end. I think I just lost you.
This particular little conciousness I am trapped in at the moment.....thinks it is an individual, but it isn't. It's a little part of a big
thing. The stuff my body is made out of, the same stuff as the rest of the stuff in the universe is made from, the same chemicals, proves that.
So the question really isn't how did I get here. I belong here, here is what I AM. The real question is what is this little conciousness that thinks it's separate, from space, time, others, the planet stars and universe. Freud called it the Ego.
Is the illusion this; that I am one with all there is? Or is the illusion that I am separate from all there is?
I rose up out of a long process, walked around on the surface of earth for a while, and sank back into the primordial slime I came from.
And while I walked around on the earth, during that time, I had thoughts, and wonders, and I wrote out this. I expressed myself.
And that's what the universe has always done. Expressed itself. It is the conciousness.
BANG!
The universe, me, all of it, we just couldn't stay silent any more, so here it/we/me are.
