So you made it to this page and are probably wondering why I even have this website and what I am all about. I guess the best way I can describe it is that I enjoy it, and maybe my work here will help inspire others to do great things they would normally not. In the end my time available to me is extremely short lived, and it would be conceded to think that I am something out of the ordinary. Lets take me, at 34 years old, and think about what exactly I get to see, experience, create, and achieve from different perspectives:
My experience of ‘time’ vs:
The last century (100 years) = 34%
The last millennia (1000 years) = 3.4%
The earliest known human settlements (195,000 years) = 0.0174%
The earliest known dinosaurs (231 million years) = 0.000014%
Age of the Earth (4.54 billion years) = 0.000000748 %
Age of the Milky Way (12.5 billion years) = 0.000000272%
Age of the known Universe (13.7 billion years) = 0.000000248%
My experience as an individual ‘person’ vs:
My city’s population (227,000) = 0.000441%
My state’s population (8,260,000) = 0.0000121%
American population (318 million) = 0.000000314%
World population (7.1 billion) = 0.0000000141%
Number of humans ever born (108 billion) = 0.000000000926%
My experience on ‘Earth’ vs:
Number of planets in the Milky Way (100 billion) = 0.000000001%
Number of stars in the Milky Way (200 billion) = 0.0000000005%
Number of stars in the known Universe (10^24) = 0.0000000000000000000001%
My experience as a ‘body’ (~175lbs) made of atoms vs:
Total weight of living things on Earth (104 Petagrams) = .0000000000756%
Mass of Earth (1.3 x 10^25 lbs) = 0.0000000000000000000000134%
Mass of Solar System (1.993 x 10^30 kg) = 0.00000000000000000000000000396%
Mass of Galaxy (1.26 x 10^12 Solar Masses) = 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000395%
Mass of the known Universe (10^53 kg) = 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000079%
So what am I trying to say? I guess I am trying to put into perspective how seemingly minuscule I am as a person with all my problems, goals, achievements, hopes, dreams, etc, and realize that in the end my tiny sliver of existence is unfathomably small. By understanding that fact I guess I am trying to live my life the best I can, experience all I can, see, do, smell, taste it all and try to have a blast doing it. Why the hell not? Look at the above, and tell me what exactly you have to lose.
So in conclusion, can you name any regular Joe Schmo from 200 years ago? Can you name that migrant worker, or an average farmer, or a seamstress that lived lived just an average life a mere couple hundred years ago? Probably not, because history has forgotten them all. The impact they had was a bit too small to be remembered. I guess ideally what I am trying to do is inspire others in a way so my name isn’t forgotten, but even if it is, the results of both my work and my actions will cascade in the smallest of ways to make the world a better place.
– Madison