Lately I have become fascinated with three things:
1. The recent discovery of hundreds of planets orbiting stars in our galaxy ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasolar_planet )
2. Advances in understanding of life on the microscopic scale. Watch this ( multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/anim_innerlife.html ) and prepare to freak out when you realise this is going on inside you in 100 trillion different locations
3. Henry Markram’s Blue Brain project – an attempt to build a detailed, realistic computer model of the human brain ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS3wMC2BpxU )
I guess I am quite fortunate to be a member of the only species on earth capable of even beginning to comprehend the nature of the universe and to wonder about my place in it.
Here we sit, on the wafer thin surface of a tiny planet, after 4 billion years of evolution, where cellular life forms have tried and tried again to self-organise into the best co-operative self-perpetuating civilizations they can – without a brain between them. Now our planet owns trillions of brains, including 6 billion big enough to organise the civilization we live in today. Great apes, aping the same netÂworking capacity on a global scale that our cells have been using microscopically for eons.
Yet sometimes we seem so dumb. We struggle in relationships, battle with each other and worry ourselves sick. When are we going to ‘get it’?
If you ask me, it is when we finally surrender to the process. Life got us to where we are, so it’s time we started living. Whatever I am doing, wherever I find myself within society’s matrix, I really have no other choice but to try to be the best ‘me’ I can be.
As I take stock of the year that was and get set for the next orbit around the sun, it’s time for this revolution’s resolutions. I am going to honour and obey my cellular civilization and I am going to maximise my contribution to human civilization. In other words, I am going to be healthy and do good work.
And if you aren’t going to do the same, then get out of the way. I am going to start choosing my clients, rather than letting them choose me. If they aren’t operating at least on the same level as I do, ethically, I’m not going to let them drag me down. I’m pursuing perpetual promotion. Onwards and upwards. Evolution and creation. I’m stepping up and stepping out. I’m not going to let evolution’s efforts to get me here be in vain and I sure don’t want to find out that there are civilizations living on those exoplanets more advanced than ours. Aren’t we supposed to be a competitive race?
We’d better start working as a team. In 2010, let’s all lift our game, raise our standards and spend each day on our human scale, using our microscopic inheritance to fulfill our cosmic calling.
In a galaxy, 4 billion light years from here, beings just like us might be observing an exoplanet we call ‘Earth’ preparing to come alive. Closer to home, inside my own head, I can imagine this scenario …and feel pretty glad to be here.
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