I sat in a bath holding my breath. Half my face submerged in the water. I stared along the glassy surface, at my feet. They both stared back at me, obviously unimpressed. Occasionally, a fleshy seal would break the surface, bob around a bit, then sink back down to look for fish. The beat of my heart from the depths caused ripples of life to run away from me.
Feet are quite badly underrated. I wonder how many people on this planet are staring at their feet? I wonder how many people in the Universe are staring at their feet? It is just a twist that my bath is where it is in the Universe. It could just as easily be in a different spiral arm, on a different spherical rock orbiting a different star. Our planet, the third from the sun, has perfect physical and chemical credentials for sustaining life, for evolution, for me to have a luke-warm bath.
The sun, the source of all our power, is a star, not a Matt Damon or Nicole Kidman, but more an Andy Peters or Julia Sommerville. It is a pretty insignificant, unimpressive star (no disrespect). One of one hundred thousand million in our Galaxy alone and our solar system is a tiny part of one of the millions of galaxies (and they are just collections of stars), that make up the known Universe.
If the Earth was slightly closer to the Sun, or slightly farther away, I would not be having such a pleasant bath-time and all the stuff around me, the house, the trees, the cows, the people, the rice cooker banging out happy hardcore, life in general, could not have developed.
We are rotating at just the right distance from the Sun. There is a sweet spot extending from inside the orbit of Venus out to that of Mars. Everything is just right, the atmosphere enables us to breathe and also protects us from killer waves from space.
Feet are quite badly underrated. I wonder how many people on this planet are staring at their feet? I wonder how many people in the Universe are staring at their feet? It is just a twist that my bath is where it is in the Universe. It could just as easily be in a different spiral arm, on a different spherical rock orbiting a different star. Our planet, the third from the sun, has perfect physical and chemical credentials for sustaining life, for evolution, for me to have a luke-warm bath.
The sun, the source of all our power, is a star, not a Matt Damon or Nicole Kidman, but more an Andy Peters or Julia Sommerville. It is a pretty insignificant, unimpressive star (no disrespect). One of one hundred thousand million in our Galaxy alone and our solar system is a tiny part of one of the millions of galaxies (and they are just collections of stars), that make up the known Universe.
If the Earth was slightly closer to the Sun, or slightly farther away, I would not be having such a pleasant bath-time and all the stuff around me, the house, the trees, the cows, the people, the rice cooker banging out happy hardcore, life in general, could not have developed.
We are rotating at just the right distance from the Sun. There is a sweet spot extending from inside the orbit of Venus out to that of Mars. Everything is just right, the atmosphere enables us to breathe and also protects us from killer waves from space.
What is the chance that we are on the only rock that is floating in a sweet spot? That our species is the only one in the mind-bogglingly massive Universe that has evolved so far to come up with the Mc Donald’s drive-thru? There has to be someone or something else or millions of someone elses sitting in their bath on other rocks floating around other stars in other Galaxies contemplating their feet, however many they have.
We worry about whether we are happy, whether we are making the right decisions in life, stressing about deadlines and the style of our hair or whether Jack Osbourne really did sleep with Paris Hilton. When really, we should be laughing and enjoying what we have got, because we are all really lucky and also, even if we don’t really like to admit it, really, really insignificant. I am made from the same stuff as the water that I am bathing in, its just vibrating at a different speed.
It’s also cold now.
I am getting out.
We worry about whether we are happy, whether we are making the right decisions in life, stressing about deadlines and the style of our hair or whether Jack Osbourne really did sleep with Paris Hilton. When really, we should be laughing and enjoying what we have got, because we are all really lucky and also, even if we don’t really like to admit it, really, really insignificant. I am made from the same stuff as the water that I am bathing in, its just vibrating at a different speed.
It’s also cold now.
I am getting out.
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