Your life: a miracle? Or something that just happened? Lent 2021, Day Two

"You are as insignificant as a grain of sand"

"The Universe was made for you."

Which of these two statements are true? 

I'll argue that both are. 

I'll start this post by hitting you with some big numbers.

Science currently (2021) estimates the Universe to consist of 200 billion galaxies. Each of those galaxies consists of anywhere between a hundred million and a hundred trillion stars; there are therefore more stars in the observable Universe than there are grains of sand on Planet Earth.

Our entire galaxy, the Milky Way, is pretty ordinary, consisting (it is estimated) of somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars, of which ours, the Sun, is pretty ordinary.

The Universe is estimated to have been around for around 13.8 billion years (and what happened before the Big Bang remains a matter of competing scientific theories). Our planet has been around for 4.5 billion years, and life on Earth has been around for at least 4.1 billion years. And from the moment the first life form took on the hallmarks of being alive, reproducing, evolving, an unbroken chain of ancestors has made it all the way to you - alive, conscious, right now. Had just a single amoeba or proto-fish or lobe fin or dinosaur or early mammal or hominid in that chain died before it had the chance to reproduce - you'd not be here, reading my blog at this moment in time. A chain consisting of billions of successful reproductions - and now, here you are. A lineage, an ancestry running all the way back to the very first successfully-reproducing form of life on earth

The odds of your existence, of your consciousness being here, now, to pore over these words, are infinitesimally small. And yet it happened. Rejoice!

Is that not a miracle? 

Or, would you turn it the other way round: there's so much life, even conscious life, with 7.8 billion humans alive on our planet right now, that your existence is totally unremarkable...

But had your parents never met - would you still be? Not the physical you, but the conscious you - the awareness that defines how you experience life?

The physical you - the Ego - is indeed as insignificant as a grain of sand. But your Consciousness is why the Universe exists - so that you can experience it.

The way you subjectively see life is crucial to understanding that the Universe was made for you, for you to observe, to sample, even to a very limited degree.

The conditions for you to be you have all been met, right the way back to the Big Bang. A Universe that's physically right, that has the right set of laws of physics to enable it to expand, to develop heavier atoms that can combine into molecules that can build proteins and cells - and conscious life.

It's pretty miraculous. If the Big Bang were to start all over, what would be the chances that 13.8 billion years later, on one planet orbiting an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy, you'd pop up to start observing it unfolding?

Sit back and consider that miracle. That's what it means to be alive, a conscious observer of an unfolding Universe. To make it more amazing, consider this: the hydrogen atoms that you are made up of have been around since shortly after Big Bang, and will exist after your death for another nonillion years (10³²) before decaying (science currently estimates).

Your consciousness is a part of this Universal process. 

A tiny part/A huge part.

This time three years ago:
The evolution of the biosphere cannot be predicted

This time four years ago:
Jeziorki meltdown in the fog

This time five years ago:
Health, happiness and wholeness

This time six years ago:
Kicking off Lent again 

This time seven years ago:
Improving the procurement of Poland's infrastructure 

This time eight years ago:
Wait to spend or save lives now? An infrastructure quandry

This time 12 years ago:
It's not rich countries that build roads, its roads that build rich countries

This time 13 years ago:
Snow that was doomed to melt

Lent 2021; my thirtieth

By Easter Sunday, falling on 4 April this year, I will have completed 30 Lenten periods of abstinence, beginning in 1992. Each year, without exception, I have given up alcohol (a much harder task for me as a sociable young man than it is for me today, in lockdown, with no social gatherings, and with bars and restaurants shut). 

For the first 20 or so Lents, the period has been little more than giving things up, exercising the will not to do something. Far harder than not doing something is doing something, and doing it consistently, regularly. Building good habits, for the good of body and soul. Much of the sensible living habits I have adopted into my daily, year-round, life, has been an extension of a Lenten resolution. Good things have come from Lent, I find.

More recently my Lents have taken on a more spiritual focus, a period of intensified search for meaning, for understanding conscious life and its purpose. The uncovering of spiritual truth is, I posit, is a journey that takes far longer than one lifetime. A quest that spans millennia; thousands of millennia.

Have we a part in that quest? Do even you want a part in that quest? 

Many of us are not in the least bit interested. Dismissing notions of a Divine Being, of an afterlife - indeed of a spiritual side to human nature - to life itself, many humans of all levels of intelligence - are entirely materialist in their outlook. "When we die, that's it. All over," they say. "You only live once". YOLO. An excuse, then, for indulgence, self-indulgence - and often at the cost of the environment. "Tearing up the highway in a big old dinosaur." 

So - there's this life. It's getting shorter every day. The world spins and circles the sun; we are back where we were but have moved on, the upward spiral of learning and understanding. 

This year, I intend to contrast materialism with mindfulness. And I will be returning to old questions, such as how much spirituality do we need in our lives; is there an afterlife and if so what does it look like; what is the nature of God. I freely acknowledge that I am but two yards along a road that is infinity miles long, but I feel I am a few inches further along that road than I was last year or five years ago, and a foot or two further than I was 20 or 30 years ago. 

Last year's Lenten exploration - 'Build your own Religion' was particularly useful to me, confirming that I have no intention of building a religion, rather I seek to bridge the gap between religions and science, based on my philosophical observations. 

I want to consider who - or what - God is; the Universe and why it exists; if there's an afterlife and if so, what it's like; how much 'spirituality' we need in our lives, and how this all fits in with a more humanist approach to living a life to fulfil our potential.

The basic building block of my approach is our own conscious experience, the feeling of being; how it feels to be, when you are still, calm, without external stimuli, without your ego getting in the way. Mindfulness, if you will, meditation, decoupling of the awareness from the material.

Today, there's a thick layer of snow outside; by April we could easily be experiencing an early-spring heatwave while blossom fills the trees. A time of year of re-birth, the best time of year, brightness and optimism emerging from out of the depths of winter.

There are 46 days between now and Easter Sunday (Sundays included); each day I shall explore aspects of the spiritual quest, with the hope that this exercise will bring new enlightenment, new insights into the conscious condition. So join me, do - I'd be grateful for the company along the way, any comments, questions, do please jump in, all will be responded to, either in the comments box or by email.

This time last year:
Grey February dusk; buzzing Warsaw

This time last year:
Skierniewice-Łuków line modernisation announced

This three years ago:
Entropy and anti-entropy in a constant-ruled universe

This four three years ago:
Truth, spin, bullshit and lies

This time five year:
How much spirituality do we need?

This time eight years ago:
The Chosen Ones

This time nine years ago:
Fixies in the snow

This time 12 years ago:
Just the ticket

Future, past

Forty five years ago; February 1976. A time of incipient change. Ahead of me, my A-Level exams (equivalent of Polish matura), summer holidays in Poland - then university.

But which one? It was this month 45 years ago that I set off on my own to see five universities around the UK - Lancaster, Warwick, Kent, Essex and East Anglia. These were my choices for the university admission process that would end with offers of grades needed at A-Level. I'd never travelled so intensively, or so far, on my own around England as I did that month. I came back from East Anglia, Norwich (or was it Essex, Colchester), with a dose of the flu, leaving me bed-ridden for a few days.

It was a specific time in my life. My father had just installed a new central heating system in the house - on his own - and I recall the smell of the paint of the new Potterton boiler, looking into the little window at the blue pilot light, watching it ignite the gas with a muted 'whoomph', the warmth, the copious hot water... At the time, I was making an Airfix kit of a North American P-51D Mustang, USAAF Eighth Air Force, England, 1944. The period appealed strongly to me; in the pop charts were Glenn Miller and his Orchestra and Manhattan Transfer with another Glenn Miller hit - Tuxedo Junction - 1944 was only as distant from 1976 as 1989 is from today.

And in the Radio Times for Saturday 21 February 1976, on BBC 2, an intriguing programme... 

"Introduced by Melvyn Bragg: So You Wanna be a Rock 'n' Roll Star. Tonight 2nd House looks at the reality behind the fantasies with a three-day slice in the life of the Kursaal Flyers, one of the bands most tipped for success in 1976. The film records their ups and downs, joys and anger, in dressing rooms and motels, and includes extracts from two concerts."

It really is worth seeing. If you haven't got a spare hour and 20 minutes, bookmark it and return - a slice of rock history, a snapshot of an era.

This I had to see. Turned out to be most influential - director Mark Kimel's documentary went on to inspire Comic Strip Presents Bad News Tour and of course This Is Spınal Tap, both parodic satires of rock bands on tour. Influential for me too. The 'Flyers' aspect (I didn't know at the time that the name referred to a funfair ride at Southend's Kursaal amusement park) appealed to me, as did the vintage Americana the band's music drew on, a heavily country-influenced sound. The cover art of the band's second album, The Great Artiste (1976), prompted me to buy it later that year.

Mama's boys indeed - the documentary shows that all but one of the band lived with their mums (like Colin out of Bad News).

Watching the Kursaal Flyers documentary influenced me greatly; I'd see them live, at the time (just before punk rock emerged), the pub rock genre was destined for success. Acts like Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello and Dave Edmunds in the Stiff stable, from Southend and Canvey Island (the Kursaals' home) Dr Feelgood and Eddie and the Hot Rods. Of those five universities I visited 45 years ago, I ended up in my first choice, Warwick, to study America - a country my postwar generation obsessed about. 

This time last year:
New platforms, Sułkowice and Chynów

This time two years ago:
Birds return to frozen ponds

This time three years ago:
Bending the forces of physics with your will

This time five years ago:
Giving it up for Lent

This time seven years ago:
North-east of Warsaw West revisited

This time eight years ago:
Looking for answers

This time nine years ago:
Fresh powder in Warsaw's parks

This time 11 years ago:
Another Lent starts

This time 13 years ago:
Okęcie dusk

Low sun, high viewpoint

A snowy Sunday, so a peek at how the S7's coming on. No one around, so I take the opportunity to scale one of the soil mountains to get a view. And as I reached the top, the sun descended below the bank of cloud, illuminating the land.

Below: the S7 makes a 30-degree turn to the left before joining the S2 and S79 at the airport junction. Lovely skyline. You can see the camber in the roadway, good expressway design.

 

Below: switching lenses and turning towards the north-east; on the centre of the horizon, plumes of smoke from Siekierki power station. In the foreground, untended, unclaimed land between arable fields.

Below: zooming in with the longer lens for a close up of Jeziorki, top end of ulica Trombity. On the horizon, the roofs of Ursynów.

Below: looking south-west across the path of the S7 extension towards the Action warehouse, Zamienie. The new road bridge that will one day cross the S7 and link Jeziorki and Dawidy Bankowe still a long way from completion. Work has slowed down since the frosts came.

Below: ice broken up by tracked vehicles moving across the site. It's about 8cm/ three and half inches thick. Note my hi-vis coat. From a distance, I look like a construction worker. A useful disguise.

Left: sunset today in Warsaw was at 16:47, an hour and 23 minutes after the year's earliest. Time stamp on this photo: 16:33. No fresh snow for a while, but more due between tonight and Wednesday, with temperatures oscillating between -6C and 0C. Tuesday should be nice and sunny. Catching the sun - a good source of natural Vitamin D.

Note multiple sets of paw prints of hares in the snow.

Below: across the tracks, 16:41. Composition spoilt by vandalism. "Beat on the brat, beat on the brat, beat on the brat with a baseball bat, oh yeah", as the Ramones once sang. 

Below: new housing at the far end of ulica Dawidowska, catching the last rays of the setting sun.

This time last year:

The Prisoner's Dilemma - how to win

This time three years ago:
The Becoming and the Magic that'll Re-enchant Us

This time four years ago
Short-haul musings 

This time five years ago:
Mind, matter and life

This time six years ago:
Compositions in blue and white

This time nine years ago:
Waiting for the change to come

This time ten years ago
A wetter Poland?

This time 12 years ago:
Heavy overnight snow

This time 13 years ago:
Changing Jeziorki skyline

Winter continues, and I must say I'm rather glad

The past week's temperatures have oscillated between -12C and -4C, a good sharp frost which eased a bit today, falling back below zero this evening. More snow is on the way for tomorrow night and Monday, double-digit frosts again on Tuesday. Good - this is how winters should be (even if we have to turn up the gas to stay comfortable).

The ponds are all frozen solid; there's evidence of motorised vehicles on the ice, while fresh footprints suggest ever-braver excursions into the wilderness.

Below: look carefully along the path towards the houses on the horizon, and you'll see a hare. At first, I thought it was a dog running towards me - then it stopped; I identified it as a hare, ears erect. With a wide-angle lens, I couldn't do it justice; in a flash, the hare had leapt over the row of withered tansy and darted off at right angles to the path. Its speed was amazing.

Snow allows you to see where people and where animals wander. New tracks appear, opening up new possibilities for walking. Below: looking across abandoned land towards ul. Nawłocka.

Below: the way home from the footpath leading to the ponds. The house is on the horizon; the snowfield reminds me of skiing.

Below: back in the garden; the sun is setting, its rays breaking through the trees to light up the snow in the foreground.

Is this the last such winter, or will such winters return, albeit more rarely than in our past?

This time last year:

Bus loop opens at W-wa Jeziorki

This time two years ago:
[Warsaw's] Morskie Oko in black & white

This time three years ago:
Preparations for Lent

This time five years ago:
Religion and Spiritual Growth

This time seven years ago:
When trams break down

This time nine years ago: 
Who are the thickies of Europe?

This time ten years ago:
Oldschool Photochallenge: Response No. 2

This time 11 years ago:
Oligocene water from Jeziorki 

Two trains, two snowy days

How much Poland's railways are improving is the theme here; the modernisation of the Warsaw-Radom line has reached a milestone, as of Monday 8 February trains are now crossing the Pilica south of Warka and are carrying on to Dobieszyn. Timetable improvements mean that the journey on the semi-fast service from W-wa Śródmieście to Chynów has been cut to 41 minutes from 51 minutes, with the promise of an even faster time once the entire line is completed down to Radom.

Below: this is the RE8 przyspieszony service (R = regional, E = express, 8 = LK8, the Warsaw-Radom-Kielce-Kraków line) on its way south, stopping only at full stations and not at halts (przystanki osobowe) such as W-wa Jeziorki.
 

From W-wa Zachodnia, the only stops on the way to Chynów are W-wa Służewiec, Piaseczno, Zalesie Górne and Czachówek Południowy. Dashing through the snow, between W-wa Dawidy and W-wa Jeziorki.

Two days later, I catch a full coal train, hauled by a single modernised SM48. In years gone by, such a train would have needed two or even three engines to haul it...

Nostalgia corner - taken from the other side of the tracks, but at same point between W-wa Dawidy and W-wa Jeziorki, 31 January 2010. Three engines needed to haul the train. The modernised ST48 is based on the old Soviet TEM-2 (ST48 in Polish service). Here we see a pair of ST48s headed by an SM42. [Note Polish loco designation - first letter denotes power, so 'S' = spalinowy, or diesel, whereas ''E' = elektryczny. And long ago, 'P' = parowy, or steam. The second letter denotes use, so P = pasażerski, T = towarowy (freight), M = manewrowy (shunting), U = uniwersalny. Numbers denote type. So EU07 is the seventh type of electric loco for universal use.]

The way things were. Smell the fumes.

Below: heading south to Siekierki power station, much coal. Contributing to Poland's image as the filthy man of Europe. So - progress needed in weaning Poland off fossil fuels.

BONUS SHOT: 13 February, a coal train bound for Siekierki and a passenger train bound for Góra Kalwaria both pass W-wa Jeziorki. Photo taken from the southern end of the 'up' platform at W-wa Jeziorki station.

BONUS BONUS SHOT: 18 February, a double-decker not servicing the semi-fast pospieszony to Radom, but the all-stations service to Góra Kalwaria.

This time last year:
"I wake up at five and queue for bread and soup"

This time two years ago:
Getting over this year's flu

This time three years ago:
War and the absence of war

This time five years ago:
Sensitivity to spiritual evolution

This time six years ago:
75th anniversary of Stalin's deportations of Poles

This time seven years ago:
Peak Car (in western Europe at least)

This time eight years ago:
Pavement for Karczunkowska NOW!
[I still have to walk through mud or snow dodge speeding drivers!]

This time nine years ago:
Until the Vistula freezes over 

This time ten years ago:
Of sunshine, birdsong and wet socks

This time 13 years ago:
Dziadzio Tadeusz at 90

Winter's walk, around Jakubowizna

For Moni

A day like today must be optimised; time to put on two masks, board train, and go down to Chynów, pop onto the działka, warm the house (inside the temperature was 5.5C on arrival), then set out on a long walk. Below: localised flooding, frozen, near Grobice.

 

Below: as last week's snows retreat, moss emerges to carpet the forest floor. Between Dobieszyn and Rososz.

Below: spiral pattern on frozen puddle along the forest track. In places, walking was difficult - slippery ice, or thin ice over puddles.

Below: medium-tension power lines run through the forest between Rososz and Jakubowizna. Note in the foreground, the pile of dumped apples.

Below: a small herd of deer cross the track - a doe and four fawns. Click to enlarge.

Below: not a state border; the red-and-white post denotes a geodetic control marker, on the edge of a field between Jakubowizna and Adamów Rosowski.

Below: where the sun don't shine. Plentiful snow at the top of the hill above Jakubowizna.

Below: the westward-facing slope was bereft of snow - only slippery ice in the ruts left by vehicle tracks.

Below: same spot, where the path for Grobice swings off to the right; 28 October last year, an hour and half nearer sunset.

Sunset today is an hour and ten minutes after the earliest sunset, an appreciable difference. And sunshine all day has been highly beneficial to the old samopoczucie. A long walk, including getting to the station and back, 25,000 paces, 20km, with 175 minutes of medium-to-high intensity walking. Ver, very good rezultat!

This time last year:

Holidays delight me not

This time two years ago: 

Smolna, Tamka, Skarpa in B&W

This time four years ago:
15 years under one roof

This time six years ago:
Białystok: Ipswich of the East 

This time seven years ago:
Sadness at the death of Tadeusz Mosz 

This time eight years ago:
Interpreting vs. translating vs. explaining

This time nine years ago:
More than just an Iluzjon 

This time ten years ago:
Oldschool photochallenge

This time 11 years ago:
Warsaw's wonderful nooks and crannies

This time 13 years ago:
Viaduct to the airport at ul. Poleczki almost ready

Yo-yo winter

A few days of very cold weather, snow, then thaw, then the frost returns with more snow, then another thaw and so on. From -13C to +5C and rain then back to -5C.

Warsaw has just enjoyed two beautiful blue-sky days of snow and frost, touching the sublime. Some photos then...

Below: heading up towards the footpath to the ponds, a very un-Ealing sight. And a Belarusian Airlines Boeing 737 coming into land.

Below: my tracks over the frozen middle pond. With motor vehicles taking to the ice - there's no longer any risk for walkers.

Below: the path between the ponds looking north; they are all progressively being choked by reeds.

Left: correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is a juvenile common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), perched (on one foot) on the overhead power line above the track between W-wa Dawidy and W-wa Jeziorki, the smaller of the two species of birds of prey around here, the other being the larger marsh harrier. The kestrel was not expending energy hovering on high looking for voles or field mice - the cable gives a good enough vantage point - its head can swivel right round.

Below: Sierra Da Vidy, between Jeziorki and Dawidy Bankowe. Not so much 7,000m high, nearer seven metres high, the hill of soil that will be used for earthworks on either side of the S7 extension. I espy two foxes; there are plenty of paw prints around, and tracks of hares. Will the wildlife move on once the S7 is buzzing with traffic?

Below: the Warsaw skyline behind the S7 extension works as the expressway climbs towards the tunnel carrying ul. Baletowa under it.

Below: sunset approaches, the sun just over the horizon by the northern pond.

Below: ul. Kórnicka, leading towards ul. Trombity (turning left) and the railway track (straight on), minutes before sunset.

Below: sublime sunset on Sunday, Nowa Wola.

This time two years ago:

Plank time!

This time three years ago:
What happened at the Railway Hotel?

This time four years ago:
How to annoy the passengers

This time five years ago:
Zloty symbol - your suggestions 

This time six years ago:
The future of Warsaw's public transport

This time seven years ago: 

Snowdrifts and trains in winter

This time nine years ago:

Back to the blackboard

(on the superiority of Polish schools to British ones)

This time 11 years ago:

Greed, fear, fight-and-flight - and the weather

This time 12 years ago:

Where the new expressways will meet

This time 13 years ago:

Early spring in London