Taking stock...

At this moment I find myself roughly 93 million miles away from a large ball of hydrogen and helium that as a result of nuclear fusion is supplying me with all of the light and heat that I need to survive. If I glance out the window I can see a sphere of carbon about 225 thousand miles away, which seems to be smiling at me. In the entire course of human existence twelve men have stood on that sphere and looked back at the blue green ball in the sky that I call home. At that distance if they put their thumb up in the air they could block the planet from their view entirely.

For most people, this is nothing to write home about.

I live on a planet composed of tectonic plates shifting in every direction. At times the pressure formed by these plates colliding is released in such a manner that entire cities are leveled. Occasionally entire mountains erupt spewing molten rock and sulfur out into the countryside. Sometimes this freezes whatever was in its path in a state of eternal rock.

We all consider this to be completely natural.

Given the right combination of air pressure patterns winds can arise in such a way that a funnel cloud will descend from the sky, ripping up everything in its path. A few hundred miles away from me right now a city no longer exists because the sky took it away. During this huge bolts of electricity can streak across the sky, turning darkness into day. Uncontrollable and unpredictable, it’s a seemingly purposeful dance of sparks and fireworks across the horizon.

No one in the Midwest even blinks an eye at this. We just say that it sounded like a train.

I have been known to find myself in a large metal box 35,000 feet in the air held aloft only by the applied knowledge of thousands of years of the study of physics. In doing so I have crossed oceans while I slept and have seen the same sky that my forefathers saw hundreds of years ago. I’ve attended weddings where I could not understand a word but was treated like a guest of honor all the same. I’ve had dinner with people from every continent and almost all walks of life.

This is simply viewed as having an interesting life.

I have a heart that has pumped non stop for 34 years, lungs that consistently fill with oxygen and 30 feet of intestines. My eyes have allowed me to see my niece two hours after she was born, my ears have granted me the wonders of hearing Sufjan Stevens and my nose has let me understand what it truly is like to be in New Orleans. I have experienced emotions so strong that I have sprinted to a computer to write them down in an attempt to store them for the future. Others write music or paint pictures or scream from rooftops just so they can let people understand what it feels like to be alive.

And we don’t typically notice any of this.

Isn’t that weird?

What is it about life that makes us completely blind to the sheer majesty of it all? Is it because we are all so focused on the details, so intent on making the next paycheck or the next meal that we can’t look up and go “wow”? Is it because if we did that is all we would ever do; stand there, jaw agape at how we’ve somehow gone from swinging in the trees to talking on cel phones?

I don’t have the answer. That might be the only time in history that I have admitted that in public. All I know is that over the past few months I’ve been so focused on results and end states that I haven’t enjoyed the moment. You could probably replace months with years and not have much of a complaint on my end. But right now, I just kind of feel like looking around and going “wow”. I complain about my life too much. It would be much better if I stood in awe of it for a change.