Fragile

Okay Reader,

Since when do I procrastinate this much, huh?  Seriously, I need to stop letting myself put off so much work for so long.  You know what?  It will get done, and it will be good.  I'm sitting in my dorm at 12:30 am, just writing this.  T'was a very low key day, and I even got a nap in.  It's a shame I have to put off naps until the weekend... a cryin' shame. Anyways, this is what I've been thinking about lately:

I'm not super religious or anything, but I do have a spiritual side, and for lack of a better word, we are miracles.  There.  I said it. The human race and the human experience is incredibly and profoundly miraculous.  Why?  Because we survive as individuals, as groups, as cultures, as a race.  Not only do we survive, but given the right conditions, we downright thrive!--all while inhabiting very fragile bodies in a very dangerous world.  Life is extremely fragile, do you know this?

We have five incredible senses and an even more powerful mind.  Now, the reason I say that life is fragile is because everything we are, our personality, our soul, ourselves, are stored in our brains, and if anything happens to that brain, we lose whatever processes and systems happened to be on that part of a very fragile cortical layer of gray matter.  Every sensation you experience, every smell, every sound, every taste, every image, and every touch, only exists because some part of your brain tells you you're experiencing it.  If this is damaged... you simply don't experience that particular sensation. Fragile.

We live a miraculous existence because our lives are filled with rich, but raw sensations that our mind weaves together to form the tapestry that is the world we know.  Simple wavelengths come together in the systems of the eye to produce the beautiful image of a sunset, pressure waves are transformed into electrical signals that are interpreted to be the sounds of a friend playing guitar... and the subtle changes in pressure on our skin cause sensory neurons to fire more rapidly, resulting in us detecting the comforting squeeze of a friend's hand in a moment of distress.

We lead dangerous, perilous, fragile lives, and yet it's a beautiful existence made stable by our interactions with the places and people we choose to be and be with.  We live lives rich with experiences, even if that's just waking up to the smell of vanilla.  Life is a miracle because somehow, all this randomness and chaos makes sense once filtered through biological systems in our brain.  The science behind our senses allows us the wonder of the human experience--to experience humanity.  I think that's pretty epic, don't you?

So, Reader.  I want you to use your senses.  Breathe deep.  Look around.  Savor that meal.  Listen to that music. Feel something.  Don't take your senses for granted--just take a moment to soak it all up like the sensory sponge you are.

That's it for now.  I hope for you the courage to be brave, be bold, and be beautiful.

-Megan