Let's Get Small...

[Crossbreed]

In a previous thread, I mentioned that when I studied musculo-skeletal anatomy for figure drawing, it made me feel really fragile.
Recently, I started looking into (collaborative) genealogy and has had the effect of making me feel really small...

Dust In The Wind, Kansas (1977)

 

[Aneka]

Same feeling I always got even as a small child when I looked at the night sky.
The eternity of (non) existence before life and after death is a frightening thought.

 

[Aspychata]

Sometimes l wonder (in the same vein), why we are all on the same paths of redundancy, like little figurines on a conveyer belt until we just fall off. Like what is the point of all this? Then you start heading over to the church of philosophy to make sense of it all.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

We are made of the same primary elements found in the universe, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen.

Looking at a map on Google Maps,...look at your home, your neighborhood, your state or country. Now look at the Earth. Now look at the Earth from the view of the moon. Now look at the Earth from the view of Neptune. Now look at the Earth from the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. Now look at the Milky Way from the edge of the universe.

In the greater scheme of things, we are almost imperceptible.

Feeling small?

 

[Aneka]

We are made of the same primary elements found in the universe, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen.

Looking at a map on Google Maps,...look at your home, your neighborhood, your state or country. Now look at the Earth. Now look at the Earth from the view of the moon. Now look at the Earth from the view of Neptune. Now look at the Earth from the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. Now look at the Milky Way from the edge of the universe.

In the greater scheme of things, we are almost imperceptible.

Feeling small?

There was a size comparison video of the Universe- from asteriods to planets to white stars. Is this the one?
Anyways, it was mindblowing. Our sun is less than dust compared to other stars lol

 

[MildredHubble]

Synchronicity! Baader Meinhof Phenomenon!! That song was playing in a store I was in the other day! All I could think of was that scene in Bill and Ted where they tell Socrates that "All we are is dust in the wind dude!".

 

[Atrapa Almas]

Well, as far as we know, we are all diferent aspects of Luca.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor
That what we consider us (our conscient self) its alive is not that clear. Cells on the other hand are clearly alive, but their age is not that clear.

If a bacteria divide itself in 2 "new" bacterias, are they really new? Their components are the same.

If they are new, the age of an animal composed by cels should be the age of the last divided cel. Maybe a week or two? And if they are new, did the previous bacteria died when it divided itself in two new ones?

If they are not new, then both of them are of the age of the previous bacteria, which is of the age of the previous one... untill we reach Luca. Then all known life in the planet would be the same age, since we are all Luca that actually never died.

Yeah, its an interesting topic.

 

[Aspychata]

Well, as far as we know, we are all diferent aspects of Luca.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor
That what we consider us (our conscient self) its alive is not that clear. Cells on the other hand are clearly alive, but their age is not that clear.

If a bacteria divide itself in 2 "new" bacterias, are they really new? Their components are the same.

If they are new, the age of an animal composed by cels should be the age of the last divided cel. Maybe a week or two? And if they are new, did the previous bacteria died when it divided itself in two new ones?

If they are not new, then both of them are of the age of the previous bacteria, which is of the age of the previous one... untill we reach Luca. Then all known life in the planet would be the same age, since we are all Luca that actually never died.

Yeah, its an interesting topic.

Exactly. We are all fused together. We are all connected by cells. This brings it down to we are all connected by mathematical equations of division by cells. I just had a cellular mind fart divided by two.

 

[MildredHubble]

I'm not very clued up on any of this to be honest, but I was wondering about Telomeres. Isn't this essentially how cells are keeping score in terms of age? Like I say maybe I don't know enough about this sort of thing to say anything worthwhile

 

[Au Naturel]

In a previous thread, I mentioned that when I studied musculo-skeletal anatomy for figure drawing, it made me feel really fragile.
Recently, I started looking into (collaborative) genealogy and has had the effect of making me feel really small...

Dust In The Wind, Kansas (1977)

I love that song. It makes me think of Ozymandias by Percy Shelley.

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

When I hike, I like those landscapes that make me feel fragile, small, and insignificant.

 

[Suzanne]

Nothing like a dose of humility to eat!

We were having a discussion yesterday, on zoom ( my faith) and counting how many we know, who have sudden devastating illnesses and die from them and it hits one, just how fragile the human life is.

Actually, there is a bibical reference to this: Ecclesiastes 7:2

Sadly, we humans feel often that we are superior and that we are indestructable. So, by really studying the body, first we come to realise how wonderfully made we are made: Psalm 139:14 but also balances our arrogance out.

I often say: how come there is evidence to suggest that we ought not to grow old, yet, we do grow old and have to deal with the ravishes of age, compared to say: trees, who certainly out weigh our life span! This scripture tells it all: Romans 5:12

 

[Fino]

I must not be able to imagine death vividly enough because it doesn't seem frightening.

 

[Raggamuffin]

I recently joined a FB group for slime moulds. They're only a mm or 2 in size most of them. The macro photography is wonderful and opens up a whole new world:

I need to get out there with my macro lenses, now that I know pictures like this are impossible without my tripod, but also a compiling software to merge multiple images at different focal points, so that everything in shot is more in focus, rather than the usual snippet you get when using macro lenses that are so close to an object.

Ed

 

[SusanLR]

I like Dust in the Wind by Kansas.
But even the Earth and Sky do not last forever.
Not in the form as we know them anyway.

Yet won't it all last forever since energy can't be destroyed, just changed?
And then I slip away not only to philosophy, but Quantum physics ever learning
new aspects of the one conscious ALL we are a part of.

 

[Misery]

Boy is there a lot to think about in this topic already, most of which I dont understand.

I've got a headache, so there's that, I guess.

 

[Outdated]

I must not be able to imagine death vividly enough because it doesn't seem frightening.

I don't have to imagine, been there done that. Killed by a needle a dentist gave me, best sleep I ever had in my life.

Spoiler: Full story

In February 1992 I went to see the free dentist that was attached to the side of the Lyell McEwin hospital in Elizabeth. I explained to the dentist that I didn't want any fancy mucking around, just pull the tooth out.

The dentist injected a local anaesthetic next to the tooth then said "While we're waiting for that to go numb come in to the next room and I'll take an X-ray so I can make sure there's no complications." No worries, I got up and walked into the next room, also with a dental chair and an X-ray machine. As I walked into that room I suddenly felt very ill and very dizzy, the dentist noticed and asked if I was alright.

When I woke up I was staring at the ceiling. I thought I was home in my own bed, I'd just had a wonderful sleep, the best sleep I'd ever had in my life. For the first time that I could remember there was absolutely no pain in my body anywhere, what a wonderful way to wake up, what a wonderful day. Then the ceiling caught my attention, it was white and I was pretty sure that the ceiling in my bedroom was yellow.

Then a man in a white lab coat leaned forward in to my field of vision. I couldn't understand what he was doing in my bedroom, he was talking at a million miles an hour and I couldn't understand a word he was saying, but he seemed very concerned about me, he was a very nice man. Then my memory began to return and the man's voice started to make sense, he told me that I had a fit and asked if there was any history of epilepsy in my family. No. He told me that I had been clinically dead for a minute and seventeen seconds, he'd been performing CPR on me while waiting for help to arrive.

Two large orderlies from the hospital arrived then with a gurney. The gurney didn't fit through the door so they picked me up and carried me out and laid me on the gurney then wheeled me through in to the hospital. Three nurses started fussing over me fitting sensors for an ECG machine. By this time my wits and memory had fully returned, one of the nurses started trying to put a drip in my wrist. "Sorry sweetheart but I'm not letting you do that, the last time I let someone stick a needle in me is how I ended up on this gurney in a hospital." She said that she had to, it was standard procedure. I told her more firmly that it wouldn't be happening this time.

They kept me there for an hour under observation. When they finally agreed there was nothing wrong with me and released me I marched straight back to the dentist and asked if he'd please pull the tooth out now. He said he'd need to give me another needle. "Absolutely not! Not after that last one, anyway, it's still numb." I lied. He pulled the tooth for me, I think I did a pretty good job of pretending that it didn't hurt. For several hours after this I still felt that strange euphoria that I'd woken up with, and there was still no pain in my back or my ruined knee.

A week later I went back to the hospital for a talk with their chief neurosurgeon about what had happened to me. He told me that what happened to me was called a Neural Seizure, that means my brain shut down. That's why the dentist had asked if I had epilepsy, my body spasmed for a while exactly the same as it would have if you'd chopped my head off. He said that when a brain shuts down like that there is nothing that medical science can do about it. He said sometimes the brain will just switch itself back on again like mine did, and sometimes it doesn't.

What triggered the seizure was Adrenaline. They put it in all anaesthetics these days for people with heart problems and high blood pressure. No one is allergic to Adrenaline itself, if they were their own bodies would kill them during birth. The problem is the preservative that they put in the Adrenaline, it's called Sodium Meta-bisulphate. People that brew their own beer know this chemical as bottle steriliser, and commercial fishermen use it as a steriliser for their catch before they freeze it. It's fine if I ingest it, but just a few micrograms in my blood will kill me. One in ten thousand Australians suffer this allergy according to our government, that's roughly 2300 of us. I don't like dentists any more.

 

[Misery]

I don't have to imagine, been there done that. Killed by a needle a dentist gave me, best sleep I ever had in my life.

Spoiler: Full story

In February 1992 I went to see the free dentist that was attached to the side of the Lyell McEwin hospital in Elizabeth. I explained to the dentist that I didn't want any fancy mucking around, just pull the tooth out.

The dentist injected a local anaesthetic next to the tooth then said "While we're waiting for that to go numb come in to the next room and I'll take an X-ray so I can make sure there's no complications." No worries, I got up and walked into the next room, also with a dental chair and an X-ray machine. As I walked into that room I suddenly felt very ill and very dizzy, the dentist noticed and asked if I was alright.

When I woke up I was staring at the ceiling. I thought I was home in my own bed, I'd just had a wonderful sleep, the best sleep I'd ever had in my life. For the first time that I could remember there was absolutely no pain in my body anywhere, what a wonderful way to wake up, what a wonderful day. Then the ceiling caught my attention, it was white and I was pretty sure that the ceiling in my bedroom was yellow.

Then a man in a white lab coat leaned forward in to my field of vision. I couldn't understand what he was doing in my bedroom, he was talking at a million miles an hour and I couldn't understand a word he was saying, but he seemed very concerned about me, he was a very nice man. Then my memory began to return and the man's voice started to make sense, he told me that I had a fit and asked if there was any history of epilepsy in my family. No. He told me that I had been clinically dead for a minute and seventeen seconds, he'd been performing CPR on me while waiting for help to arrive.

Two large orderlies from the hospital arrived then with a gurney. The gurney didn't fit through the door so they picked me up and carried me out and laid me on the gurney then wheeled me through in to the hospital. Three nurses started fussing over me fitting sensors for an ECG machine. By this time my wits and memory had fully returned, one of the nurses started trying to put a drip in my wrist. "Sorry sweetheart but I'm not letting you do that, the last time I let someone stick a needle in me is how I ended up on this gurney in a hospital." She said that she had to, it was standard procedure. I told her more firmly that it wouldn't be happening this time.

They kept me there for an hour under observation. When they finally agreed there was nothing wrong with me and released me I marched straight back to the dentist and asked if he'd please pull the tooth out now. He said he'd need to give me another needle. "Absolutely not! Not after that last one, anyway, it's still numb." I lied. He pulled the tooth for me, I think I did a pretty good job of pretending that it didn't hurt. For several hours after this I still felt that strange euphoria that I'd woken up with, and there was still no pain in my back or my ruined knee.

A week later I went back to the hospital for a talk with their chief neurosurgeon about what had happened to me. He told me that what happened to me was called a Neural Seizure, that means my brain shut down. That's why the dentist had asked if I had epilepsy, my body spasmed for a while exactly the same as it would have if you'd chopped my head off. He said that when a brain shuts down like that there is nothing that medical science can do about it. He said sometimes the brain will just switch itself back on again like mine did, and sometimes it doesn't.

What triggered the seizure was Adrenaline. They put it in all anaesthetics these days for people with heart problems and high blood pressure. No one is allergic to Adrenaline itself, if they were their own bodies would kill them during birth. The problem is the preservative that they put in the Adrenaline, it's called Sodium Meta-bisulphate. People that brew their own beer know this chemical as bottle steriliser, and commercial fishermen use it as a steriliser for their catch before they freeze it. It's fine if I ingest it, but just a few micrograms in my blood will kill me. One in ten thousand Australians suffer this allergy according to our government, that's roughly 2300 of us. I don't like dentists any more.

I'll be honest, if I didnt already have phobias relating to both dentists and needles, I think I might have gained one or both after reading all that.

I'm sorry you had to go through any of that. Even if it was a bloody long time ago.

 

[Outdated]

Not an experience I want to repeat in a hurry but it wasn't scary at the time. The only time in my life I have woken up without pain. It was nice.

 

[Crossbreed]

I must not be able to imagine death vividly enough because it doesn't seem frightening.

I have already made arrangements for that event. But I still find it a bit unsettling in not knowing what day that will be.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Rather than small, I have enjoyed this since I first read On the Origin of Species as a child:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."