its been a while hasnt it? i guess i havent had any majorly significant thoughts of late... ^^;
i once wrote about the humble appleseed, and equated it to the unique miracle of human life, that from a tiny single cell comes this complex, living, breathing, thinking orgasnism. which is pretty amazing in and of itself.
However, last night i was watching a documentry on tv called "The Great Sperm Race" which essentially scaled up the whole process of sexual conception up to human size. it was kinda funny, and at the same time very informative and quite astounding... i have a whole new level of respect and awe for sperm (particularly the one that succeeded in making me.)
basically, from the moment a sperm is created, the whole world, quite literally, is against it. For starters, only a healthy sperm stands any chance of making it to the egg. apparently over 70% of a mans sperm is unhealthy. (deformed or erratic). also, timing is a pretty big thing too. so you need a healthy sperm in the right place at the right time.
A man makes sperm pretty much his whole life, so out of the trillions and trillions of sperm created, the one that made you needed to be in the right place at the right time.
if a sperm manages to make it into a female body, thats when the odds really start stacking. first of it has to navigate the vagina, which appaerntly resembles a valley in the mountainous regions of europe, only much much more hostile. here, approximately 80% of the millions of sperm that enter the female will die, thanks to the female immune system trying to erradicate the invading foreign cells.
should the sperm manage to navigate the vagina, it needs to get into the cervix. this can only happen when a female is mensturating, so again, its a case of being in the right place at the right time. if the sperm is lucky, it will then have to climb up into the cervix, which in the tv program equated to climbing a ladder into the sky about a mile long.
once at the top, the sperm then has to navigate the fornix, which is essentially a death trap for sperm...it consists of millions of tiny tunnels barely wide enough for a sperm to fit, and 99.99999% of them are dead ends, which asically means the sperm gets lost and dies.
should the sperm manage to find the right exit (remembering this is still fighting against gravity and the female immune system) it will enter the uterus, which is equated to a great wide open plain, millions of miles wide. and the sperm is trying to find an exit that is literally about two sperm heads wide. for the sperm, it is literally like trying to find a needle in the worlds biggest haystack. not only that, but the uterus deploys deadly cells that are trying to hunt and down and kill any invading cells in the uterus...and that includes sperm. and, to make matters worse, only sperm displaying certain characteristics will be allowed into the fallopian tubes...its by invitation only.
so crossing the uterus for a sperm is like trying to find the entrance to the best nightclub ever, but the entrance is the size of a manhole cover in the middle of a city the size of london, new york, sydney, los angeles and hong kong COMBINED and will only let certain people in. and you have to find this entrance before the combined rugby squads of the world hunt you down and crush you. if you were a sperm, you'd be pegging it across the landscape thinking "sh*t sh*t sh*t!!!!! oh man! they got dave!! SH*T SH*T SH*T SH*T!!!"
Fortunatly, if you are one of the handful (approx 20) sperm that have made it this far, the fallopian tubes are a well deserved pit stop before the final push. the sperm are nourished and protected.
when the egg gets released, it sends out a signal, which marks the start of the final leg. All the sperm shake off their protective sheaths, which gives them a burst of energy, but also means they've sealed their fate. once the sheaths are off, they have a limited amount of time before the sperm expires...they are literally racing against the clock.
once again it all comes down to timing. If the sperm arrives too early, the egg wont be there, and the sperm runs out of time and dies. get there too late, and some other sperm has already won. you have to be the right sperm in the right place at the right time. by this time, the couple of million sperm we started off with has now dwindled down to a couple of sperm. once those last few sperm reach the egg, its literally a race to the wire to whoever can implant their genetic code first. the winning sperm will smash its head into the egg, and be anniahlated as the two sets of chrmosomes combine and the egg begins to devide.
so thats basically what happens. but here's the bit really worth thinking about...
a woman is born with all the eggs she will ever produce in a life time. the source is finite, and once they are all gone, thats it. no more. so in that respect, the parts of you that you recieved from your mother was always there. its always existed.
on the other hand, a man, as stated earlier, produces trillions of sperm within his life time. so the parts of you that you recieved from your father, including your gender, is only around for a brief period of time.
so you, as you are today, are composed of 45% luck, 45% timing, and 10% being the right sperm out of trillions. and that right sperm not only had to be fast enough, strong enough, smart enough; it also had to face one of the world's dealiest gauntlets, a proverbial trial by hellfire, just to sacrifice itself in order to get you going.
those are some incredibly biblical odds. all that you are, in all your physical, mental, genetic glory, is all thanks to that one particualr sperm surviving to meet that one particular egg at exactly the right instant in all of time itself.
and thats what makes each and every life unique, precious, special, something to be treasured more than anything else in creation. you, quite literally, are a miracle.
"The Earth rotated quietly on its axis, coasting through time and space. This sounds quite romantic till you consider its been doing this since its creation and that the limited scope of human perception is such that to everybody living on the planet it seemed to be just another regular day…"
I think that would make a pretty awesome start to a novel or something.
The point I would like to try and make today is that Beauty is everywhere. You already know the adage “Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder” but what does that really mean anyway? Usually it’s a phrase used to describe how one person might find another person (or thing) attractive, despite their apparent lack of attractive qualities. But this concept can be taken so much further…
It’s so easy to become disillusioned with the world. It’s so easy to become jaded and cynical. Doom and gloom fill our newspapers and tv screens daily. There is so much injustice and despair and suffering filling this world. And even for those who live a sheltered peaceful life, it’s still so easy to get stuck in a rut, going through the motions of a daily routine without truly living. Going through the daily grind just to make enough to get by…well, its little wonder people invest so much in second lives and virtual fantasies.
It takes hard work and dedication to see the beauty this world has to offer.
I think it’s one of the reasons I like Makoto Shinkai’s work so much, particularly his animated feature “5cm a Second”. He can take an action or a location that is so mundane, like catching a train or going to a convenience store, and accentuate its beauty to such a degree that you can’t help but quietly wish you lived in that world, not realising that we sorta already do.
A rainy day in the city. A slow sunset. The pattern of architecture. A person you pass by in the street. A phrase of music on the radio. A piece of graffiti. A meandering river. The certain way a particular tree grows. An abandoned building. Train Tracks glittering in the sun. A pure blue sky. A coffee shop. Endless Meadows. A jet plane at high altitude. A cloud formation. Leaves in the wind. A collection of glass bottles. The moon and the stars.
Its hard to see…but every once in a while I look out the window on yet another commute to work and I think…this is a beautiful world.
I’d like to leave you with this story I found in the newspaper. I liked it so much I cut it out and stuck it in my locker. Police in Harwich, Massachusetts, are inquiring into the owner of an excellent condition, perfectly tuned, ready to play Baldwin Acrosonic Piano, complete with stool. It was discovered abandoned in the middle of a forest by a woman who was walking her dog. The piano is quite large and heavy, so it has definitely taken several people definite time and effort to move this piano to simply leave it in the forest for no reason whatsoever. Nobody has yet come forward to claim either the piano, or responsibility for the stunt.
Isn’t that so weird? And yet something very beautiful about it too. To go to all the effort to set up a piano in a forest for no reason other than shits n giggles? That’s fantastic!
I don’t get War. Not at all.
How can i? I’ve never been to war. I’ve never served as a soldier. Sure, I was a member of the Air Cadet Corps for about 5 years, but that was hardly what I’d call military service. And sure, I’ve watched a lot of war films and anime depicting war of various kinds, but obviously these are all mostly fiction and hardly a true representative of war itself. I even tried to join the military once, before I realised that I could never live that lifestyle.
I don’t agree with War either. Although I guess there are very few people who, hand on heart, would “agree” with war. But some, or indeed many, still feel it is necessary, for whatever reason.
I hate seeing advertisements for recruitment to the military. I hate the pride people have in their armed forces. That’s not to say, however, that I hate the armed forces. Indeed, Military Technology interests me deeply. And I think Soldiers number amongst some of the most dedicated, talented and capable people a nation has to offer.
So why do we send them out to fight in meaningless battles?
I'm no fool. I very much doubt humanity will ever achieve world peace. It is our differences that make each and every human being a wonderful singularity. It is also our differences that cause conflict. As long as one person sees that somebody else is different in a way they don’t agree, there will be conflict. The alternative is a bland formless society with no imagination, no individual thought, none of the things that make humanity great. But the price we have to pay to keep our greatness is that we have to also have the things that make humanity the worst creatures on the planet.
One may argue War is necessary. It’s good for the economy, its great for social and technological advancement. It keeps mankind from overpopulating this tiny planet and completely depleting its ever diminishing resources. And only at the cost of Human Lives.
I hate how religion gets dragged into conflict. I hate that Christians are just as responsible for the slaughter of thousands of their own kind, let alone different religions. I hate how Extremists blow up civilians because their religion tells them they will be rewarded. I hate how one act of hatred begets more and more killing.
I hate how war doesn’t have a point any more. We fought two world wars. People fought to protect our freedom and rights. And now we’re arrogant enough to go barging into another country to protect their “freedoms” and “rights”? No one is invading Britain. No one is invading America, or any of the countries of the E.U or NATO, or the U.N. So why are people still fighting? Why are people still dying?
I love to listen to War Stories. I love to hear about true heroes in every sense of the word. I love the pride of the nation, who refused to bow down to a numerically superior force and eventually turned around and destroyed the largest threat to life as we know it.
I hate how people are so damned proud of “their boys” fighting for “their country”. No one is fighting “for their country”. They’re fighting for someone else’s. They’re killing people. We’re the invaders.
I hate the very real possibility that if we were not fighting in their countries, then they’d be fighting in ours.
I Love and Hate what war can bring out of people. The best and the worst of humanity.
I don’t get War. I don’t get War at all.
And I know shit about what I'm typing here.
At the time of writing, it is Midnight. The 11th of November 2008 has just finished. It marked the 90th Anniversary of the end of the first “great” war.
Remember the Fallen. Remember the survivors. Remember.
Because the War to End ALL Wars…
Didn’t.
So, obviously the big deal of the week was the record breaking turnout to the American Election Polls and subsequent election of Barak Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America.
Now I hate to litter my blog with Politics, so I'm gonna keep this article short and to the point. Like him or Loathe Him, whether you say he’s black or Hawaiian or of Mixed Ethnicities, the point of the matter is that Obama is the first person to be elected President of America that isn’t an old white man. And whether you agree with his policies or whether you think he is going to fail miserably, it still doesn’t change the fact that HISTORY was made this week. And when future text books tell the generations to come of this monumental occasion, will you be proud to turn to your kids or grandkids or disfranchised youth and say “I was there!” or “I witnessed this point in history”?
The point I'm trying to make here is that you don’t often witness history in the making.
“Ah, but Darke!” I hear you cry, “Isn’t every moment we experience history? Doesn’t the mere acknowledgement of time passing itself the creation of history?”
Well, yes, its true that every moment passed is a moment consigned to history, but how often do you get to witness a social-political event that marks a turning point in the chronicles of the human race? How often do you experience something that will make the history books, will actually make a difference to generations yet unborn?
I don’t normally follow Presidential campaigns, but I followed this one because back in January I was certain that by the end of this year either a Black Man or a Woman would be elected President. That made it exciting. It made 2008 a crucial time in the first decade of the 21st century. Sure, 2008 might be remembered for other reasons too… the Beijing Olympics. The worst financial crisis since the crash of Wall Street in the 1930s.
But I'm going to choose to remember it as the year Humanity progressed. In as little as a Century a man like Obama has gone from “White Man’s Slave” to “Leader of the Most Powerful Country on Earth”.
It pleases me to think that Humanity is capable of advancing like that within 3-5 generations…it gives me hope for the future and the other things we might achieve.
Be proud. You witnessed the dawn of a new era. How many times will you be able to truly claim that in your life? Sure, I don’t know if Obama is going to live up to our expectations. But isn’t it fantastic we gave him a chance?
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I'm still on the lookout for more topics. Preferably stuff that makes you think rather then any old stuff you could look up on Wikipedia. XD Ta.
ok, so this subject happened whilst i was writing my MyO blog this morning. this is kind of a taster of what "100 Subjects" is going to be about.
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So, I got Luna (my 100cc Scooter) back from the shop yesterday. She's all tuned up and fixed up and working again. yay! now i just gotta await her tax disc to arrive and the roads once more belong to me!! ha ha.
It's funny, cuz she needed new shock absorbers for the rear wheel, and now she's got them, they're the shiniest part on her! ha ha! it got me thinking though, how much of a machine can you replace until its still the same machine you started off with...
for example, to date i have had to replace Luna's rear tyre, front panel, rear shocks, her spark plugs, her air filter and her head-light bulb. not a lot, i know. she's still the same bike, she has the same engine and same chassis. but if i held onto her for a long time, and had to replace more parts, when would be the point where she wouldn't be Luna anymore? When i replaced her engine? When i replaced her chassis? (although replacing her entire chassis would be an extreme move.. ^^;;; )
i mean, when you get a Heart Transplant, which is arguably the body's powerplant, you're still you. just with a different heart. ok ok, so nobody has ever undergone a brain transplant, and there is no equivalent "brain" part in a motor scooter and this is all really just a flight of fancy, but think of this...
Every cell in the Human Body is constantly dying and being replaced. it's just a fact of life. i can't remember the exact time frame, but it happens repeatedly over the natural life span... your entire body gets replaced. The person you are now has no remaining cells from the person you were, say, seven years ago. But you're still you. Because the process happens over time, gradually and not instantaneously, you retain your memories, your skills, your personality. what makes up you remains, the software if you will, even though the hardware has been totally replaced.
of course this all boils down to the debate about the existance of the Immortal Soul, the indefinable element, the "I" in Human BeIng. Whether it exits physically in the body (and if so where, and where does it go after we die?) or whether it exists elsewhere, unknown and unseen but still real.
i know, in the "real world" i cant compare scooters to humans. i cant compare anything mechanical to the glory and splendour that it homo sapiens. that postulating about the existance of the Ghost in the Machine, particularly in one that is purely analogue with no trace of digital awareness, is pure fallacy.
but i like to wonder. Where is Luna's soul? and sometimes...just sometimes...is it more real than my own?
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yes? no? whatever? please comment on your thoughts. and dont forget suggestions for future topics!
