Aware

Self awareness is an incredible thing; that atoms and molecules can come together in such a way as to suddenly become aware of there existence and then go further still and look out into the world and across the cosmos and wonder at it intricacies and ask questions about what all this is and where it all came from.  And THEN STILL to begin to explore and answer those questions through genorations of organisms each passing the collective revelations and achievements of all pervious on to the next; so that we as a species might stand on each others shoulders, growing taller and taller with each passing genoration.  In this way we have a form of immortality, not of ourselves but of our awareness.

It is truly mind boggling to consider the shear number of events that had to unfold in perfect order and perfect harmony for us to even exist as a species let alone for you and me to exist as individuals here and now and in this state. For the laws of the universe to permite matter and complex molecules, for that matter to come together in stars and eventually planets and create lifeforms.  For the lifeforms on one particular chuck of drifting rock to evolve into primates and evolve intelligence.  NOW consider the number of humans to have lived on this planet and the number of events that had to take place, going back to the dawn of man, in order for each pair of your ancestors to meet and raise each consecutive ancestor.  A million million people had to shape there lives the way they did for you great great grandparents to have any shot at existence, and that chain of history had to sit just that way for you to be born as you are in this time, for you would not be you under any other set of circumstances.

This is one of my favourite quotes by Richard Dawkins, a well known evolutionary biologist with some outstanding writings.