Jacob Nordby submits irrefutable evidence that you hold the secret code for something awesome in this world. Can you find a flaw in his logic?
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I’m doing a bit of math (also known as Google-ing) for a chapter in the upcoming Blessed Are The Weird book. Here’s something mind blowing I just learned about YOU.
You are the product of two parents, right?
But, they each had two parents and so did they and so on back to the beginning of people making people.
So, if you take it back only 20 generations, you are the actual product of 1,048,576 people loving each other. * (see footnote)
So the fact is, you are at the extreme point of an enormous spear. You are the distillation and intersection of a staggering lot of DNA and human stories stretching backward into the times before when we even bothered to keep track of things.
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That’s only about 500 years worth of your ancestry, too. Even the most hardened fundamentalist would agree that the human race has been around for many thousands of years (I mean, most of us are okay with the idea that the human race has been around for at least millions of years. I tried to do the math on even just 2 to the 1,000th power, but my calculator broke–and even Google said I didn’t need to count that high and to quit trying). So the fact is, you are at the extreme point of an enormous spear. You are the distillation and intersection of a staggering lot of DNA and human stories stretching backward into the times before when we even bothered to keep track of things.
Why am I telling you these things?
Well, I was just godboggled, flummoxed and brain-whirled this morning as I considered the absolute miracle each of us is. We are weavings of intricate, hilarious, awkward, heroic and brilliant situations which have formed our undeniably unique perspective in this world.
You have millions of bandits and priestesses and farmers and hookers and monarchs and candlestick makers who all got together over the last few millennia to make you.
So, that means you are something special. You matter. The world couldn’t be what it is today without your presence in it. Thanks for being here. Now, use this information to give you the creative mojo to go do epic shit!
You have millions of bandits and priestesses and farmers and hookers and monarchs and candlestick makers who all got together over the last few millennia to make you.
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But, I can also read your mind (yes, I can). I can hear a couple of voices in your head disagreeing with me on this point. Maybe your ancestry is littered with people who created new little humans in painful, distressing situations. I grant you that this has been the way of things since time began. We all have that in common.
What is different about you, right now, is that you are awake to a different way of being. You have the opportunity to change the course of history and lead a new kind of march. Seriously, you are like some grand general at the front of a parade with all these who have gone before asking you to really do it this time.
“Please, now that you have an inkling of who you are, really do it this time,” they say.
And that is really the Big Red “So What” Button, isn’t it? I mean, this glimpse of our potential isn’t much unless it asks us to do something with it. Without a “so what?”, then it is like standing on the top of a mountain at night and feeling awed by the endless reaches of black sky all glittered with stars. It is a beautiful, inspiring moment which fades when morning light brings with it a thousand mundane, necessary duties. But this so what is the great question of what will we do with the knowledge of how wonderfully we are woven. That question, once asked, will haunt us and prod us and hold up a mirror for us at every turn. What am I doing with this splendid, tiny life of mine?
See, this isn’t just a feel-good piece about how awesome we are after all. It is a challenge. Are we up for the challenge? Can we accept the sheer weight of this knowledge and the accompanying joyful responsibility to do something worthy of our own magnificence?
Please feel free to argue with me by posting a comment below. I relish a rowdy debate. If you want to just say “wow!” with me, that’s okay, too.
“Everyone has inside of himself a piece of good news:
The good news is that you really do not know how great you can be…
…how much you can love…
…what you can accomplish…
…and what your potential is.”
~ Anne Frank
* Footnote: Or, at least having sex, but that whole deal is just about as awesome as it gets. So don’t worry too much about whether or not all your ancestors were married and whatnot. Bottom line, you got here because tons of folks exchanged DNA one way or another.
Photo credit: Flickr/Karla-K
Feedback on “Old Math” vs. “New MATHH.” And when I allow my MATHH insight to assess the older math about the long supply chain of imprinted unconscious entrainments, i.e. the Adam & Eve line of memetic, epigenetic replications – repeating themselves over, and over, and over … here is what I get. That old math line of logic might – to some degree – explain the design feature of the physical bodies that we drive around with … and navigate this multi-dimensional, Conscious Canvas of time-space-energy creation in … but even though I may drive a Chevy or Cadillac, I… Read more »
Hi Jacob, Very creative. However when you say that “You are awesome”, which “you” are you talking about, because everybody has 2 identies. They have a soul-identity and an ego-identity. The problem is, when we force the ego to assume it is awesome, because we don’t know what the ego is, our ego feels overwhelmed. Nothing overwhelms our soul-identity, on the other hand. The soul is awesome because it is the authentic or the infinite self. Our ego is pretty cool too, but it’s not real. The ego cannot be awesome, creative, all-inclusive or any of that, because it’s just… Read more »
At the risk of being a naysayer, I’m going to disagree. I don’t see how being the offspring of other humans makes me special. The same could be said of Hitler and I don’ t believe that he added much if anything to the human race. I could have a lineage full of colorful, accomplished, intelligent, unique people and still be a loser who offers nothing of value to society. What am I missing?
Reed…
Finally! A nay-sayer. Thank you.
Potential is the key word here. And the implied challenge of potential.
There is something in nature which abhors unrealized potential…
amazing what we can do once we truly see
ahhhh math… it can hurt sometimes LOL
loved the footnote
ha! Thank you, June
MATH … Moving Abundance Through Hormones. Math Final in Sociology 527 If humans have sex, then it needs must be that the very beliefs that drive those perky little thoughts must be doing the very same think. You know, “the acorn never falls far from the tree” sort of thing. So with some 6.5 billion people come out of a 9 month inflationary gestation period … and with beliefs mating and gestating all within a much shorter ten day gestation period: (1) How many new beliefs are there now swarming around inside all of the human mind-fields here and now… Read more »
hahaha. I am definitely going to need Google for any of that, Yrral Nosrac.
I have never thought about it quite like that. Yes, wow! This mathematical equation brings a whole new meaning to the scripture quote “We are wonderfully and fearfully made”, does it not? I believe “fearfully” in this context can be interpreted as “amazingly” or some other similar adverb! Jacob……thank you!
Shari,
Oh man…I’m glad to see you 🙂
Really is kind of fascinating when we step back from the everyday stuff and remember how ridiculously cool this little lifespan is, yeah?
LOVE!
Jacob
I really expected the footnote to say something pointing out that there has to have been a lot of inbreeding. Otherwise, the world population would have to be truly enormous in the past and shrinking continuously ever since. Nevertheless, I agree, and so does Neal Stephenson: “Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo—which, given the number and variety of its… Read more »
Haha, Nick!
You are awesome (as I’m sure you already know).
That’s a great clip from Cryptonomicon–which I haven’t yet read, but may do now.
Stupendous Badass,
Jacob Nordby