Artistic Footprint

I’ve always been amazed by how much the human body can take, and yet again, I am even more amazed at how easily broken we are. We weren’t born with a caution label mentioning that our mushy sacks of water mixes rather easily with concrete, metal, or any hard surfaces and should be avoided. Have you ever felt like you should have broken a bone after a nasty bail and didn’t? that your brain finally figured out “how to fall” and turned your *smack!* into something more of a rolling tumble?

It’s made me wonder just how fragile we are. And I don’t mean something trauma based, but something more in the sidelines. The BIG picture that we take for granted and don’t often look at.

Life: What is it’s probability?

I’m going to introduce you to the DRAKE equation. Which I feel very proud of because I have, in my fat little notebook from the ripe age of 15, came up with a calculation for the probability of life, only to find that it had already been calculated by Dr. Frank Drake , and used once again in the movie Contact Starring Matthew McConaughey (bit of a douchebag) and Jodie Foster. Regardless,

this is what it is: Where N is the number of potential civilized galaxies in the world, and every other variable symbolizes what is needed for life to exist.

Some of these factors would include:

• Distance from a star
• a Large orbitting neighbour like Jupiter to take relentless meteors and comments in our stead
• a suitable atmosphere
• A renewable source of energy
• Amino acids (the “building blocks of life”)

This infinite list is full of variables that we have here on earth that made life possible from the start, and continue its survival. Now given all these million variables, it appears as though life is impossible, and that we should not exist at all. But on a clear night, drive out of the city and look up. Those are stars. That is a galaxy, and there are many many more like it. a million stars divided by a million variables is one.  Earth. A BILLION stars divided by a million variables is 100. That means that there could be a HUNDRED other planets just like earth!!!

Consider the next fact. Amino Acids. These are the most basic molecules that literally were an inanimate collection of atoms on Earth 4.6 billion years ago. They just happened to tumble over eachother, mix, get struck by lightning, and magically become a key component in RNA – me and you. Then into a protein, and after millions of years of evolution, a bacteria was born. And the rest, as they say, is history.

But no it’s not that easy. There then had to be a special type of fungus that bubbled oxygen into the atmosphere whilst another organism turned CO2 into limestone (todays United Kingdom) Then there was so much oxygen that life was HUGE, and lizards were the first prime beings, happily crunching on the first mammals with its feet and teeth. Mammals were hanging by a thread so much that it’s possible that at one time, there was only one little tiny mouse scurrying in the night.

Even then, life is just a walk in the park. What about ice ages that took out 99% of life on earth several times? Humans have made it through one or two, but our numbers dropped like a meteor in gravity.

Speaking of which, ever see the movie armaggedon? that movie is more correct than you might like to believe because every 10 years or so, a meteor the size of Africa, large enough to split OUR planet in half passes between us and the moon.

Ok now we’re on the surface of earth, where, in Yellowstone National Park – and I mean the entire park – Earth’s crust is a quarter the thickness, and slightly protruding outwards. That’s one hell of a zit, and it’s a couple thousand years overdue to pop.

I find it really funny because if this information came from the White House or the 6:00 news, people would shit rabbits. Wal-mart would be overrun and the bomb shelter industry would boom. The fact of the matter is that every breath we take is extremely fragile. Life just wants to be, and will consumate wherever it can. But it appears as though our loveable planet doesn’t really notice that there are people with nerve endings down here. Now consider that we may never leave planet earth because we need our magnetic field to stop harmful solar rays from shooting very painfully through our bodies like atom-sized bullets. Consider that a simple skip over to Mars would take years and years and years not even our solar system yet. Then take the likelihood that we happen to cross paths with some flying saucer at a red light in the Polaris district. Kinda makes you skeptical about UFO sightings. Is it a bunch of drunk aliens coming over to buzz the human cattle and smoke pot with Steve Buscemi? Or just another mockery of human malleability?

So that’s the first half of this little post. Next, I will concentrate my observations about how risky our daily lives really are in: You’re so Special