SO...?

Lent 2019 Day 22

You have nine trillion (9 x 10¹²⁾ ancestors, if you trace your lineage back all the way to the Universal Common Ancestor, the first life form to appear on our planet 4.1 billion years ago. Each of those nine trillion ancestors had to reproduce successfully for you to be alive today. Just one broken link in that chain - just one ancestor that failed to reproduce - and there'd be no you.

SO?

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Every atom (and there are around 7 x 10²⁷ of them within you), has been around for billions of years. The seven kilos or so of hydrogen atoms within you have all been around since 378,000 years after Big Bang, pretty much of all of the 13.8 billion years of the lifetime of the universe. The heavier elements in you were ejected from stars. You are stardust, indeed. Over that time, within each of the 4 x 10²⁷ of hydrogen atoms inside you, the electron has been whizzing around the proton. Tirelessly. Eternally.

SO?

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After you die, each one of those 7 x 10²⁷ atoms within you will remain in existence in our universe, until - who knows? The universe, currently expanding at an ever-accelerating pace, would slow down, stop, and then, eventually all matter would collapse into black holes, which would then coalesce, producing a unified black hole or Big Crunch singularity. But until then, the atoms would continue. For a brief moment in time, they came together to form you.

SO?

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Can you see the magic in all this? Did all that successful reproduction that brought all those atoms together to form you happen by accident or design? Is your consciousness a phenomenon that exists within your skull specifically because of a vast series of happy coincidences - or is it somehow linked to a grander universal purpose?

This time last year:
A Brief History of Time reviewed

This time two years ago:
Eyes without a face

This time three years ago:
London blooms in yellow

This time four years ago:
London's Docklands: a case-study in urban regeneration

This time five years ago:
Scotland and its language 

This time six years ago:
Death, our sister

This time seven years ago:
First bike ride to work of the year 

This time nine years ago:
Poland's trains ran faster before the war

This time ten years ago:
Winter in spring: surely this must be the last snow?

This time 11 years ago:
Surely THIS must be the last snow?