It's A Boy

The tracker for the blog reached 1500 page views today. When I began the adventure of creating a blog I had set a mental goal of 100 views in a week, that would have been a success in my mind. So the fact that number was achieved and surpassed on day one was quite humbling. And the fact the blog is reaching the ripe old age of one month old in a couple of days and the number of views exceeds 1500 is even more humbling.

When I say humbling I don't want to give the wrong impression (something I am very talented at and actually take great pride in). It isn't humbling because I believe I am all that special and I have something that everyone needs to hear. It is humbling that I have achieved the feat of presenting a wide array of topics, often the kind people consider controversial and off limits, and have collected an audience of people that are willing to read, watch, comment and participate in during the adventure. Not the adventure of the blog, but more importantly the adventure of life.

Social networks are an amazing creation. Yet, still to this day we all know people that believe they are a passing fad or something they don't have enough time for. They are hardly a fad, they are a new way of life. They are popular for many worthy and noble reasons, not just the games and applications that try to entice membership. It says a lot about our species that we long to have contact and communication with one another, that we develop relationships that would be nearly impossible without these mediums. We are a social creature and we always have been. We rule this planet because of our ability to work together and achieve feats that aren't based on our strength, quickness, eyesight, size, hunting ability or a plethora of any other traits that we aren't the best at in the animal kingdom. We are social and that lead to great strides at an amazing clip when it came to learning. We learn from each other and learn from others that have lived before us.

We used to be able to find a neighborhood and settle in and close ourselves off from the rest of the world. We could surround ourselves by only like minded people and could harbor our views and never have them challenged. Times have changed. And this change can only make us better. Thousands of years ago when we were a small group and were isolated to one continent we didn't have as many differences as we do today. Now we occupy every corner of the globe and live life in a variety of ways. How it's lived in Los Angeles, California is different from how it's lived in Butte, Montana. But the one thing that is common is it is people living life. How we will be judged or viewed once we are long gone is hard to know but one thing we can be sure of is we are here now and we are fortunate to be on this ride. Whatever your view of how it all works happens to be it seems we should all be able to agree that life is a gift, remarkable, lucky, astonishing, and full of great potential for joy and happiness to be experienced. If one has no time to interact with others because their day or week or month is chalked full of busy work and tasks then I wonder about the quality of life they're living.

Evolution is, quite simply, the change over time of inherited traits found in populations. Our social tendencies are inherited traits. We certainly have the ability to pass on our behavioral tendencies. No doubt mutations are the major catalyst for any type of great deviation among organisms but not always the case. There are several mechanisms that take place in the process of evolution but the one with the most obvious impact is natural selection. The idea is very simple: the fittest survive.



We, because we live here on Earth, usually only think about evolution in terms of how it allows organisms to survive on this planet. I contend it is much more grand. If we are happy to limit ourselves to this rock and never thrive any place else then we can be rest assured our days are numbered. Besides the fact our lifeline, the sun, will eventually burn out, ending our solar system altogether, the chances of any number of other things causing our demise way before that date are much more likely. We even have the potential of creating our own demise and have built devices that could wipe out our entire species, not to mention every other species on the planet. And if we trust our scientists we even have the ability to cause enough damage to our planet to alter its conditions that would make life much more difficult to sustain.




If there is life out there in the universe then we can be certain with a 99.99% degree of probability there is intelligent life. If this intelligent life has lived for any substantial length of time, relatively speaking, then they have figured out how to not limit themselves to one rock or region. Those that didn't quite simply got eliminated by natural selection, they weren't fit to go on.



When we retreat to our comfort zones and shelter ourselves from any other views that don't align with our own we limit ourselves. We create conditions that make it hard for our species to live on past the numbered days of our current neighborhood. When we get caught up in the rat race and fail to reflect on what we are, what we're experiencing, what we have to pass on to future generations then we make it hard to move forward in the best ways possible. Regardless of how large this world seems it is smaller than any pebble of sand on the biggest beach on the planet. In fact, it's millions of times smaller than that in the grand scheme of things. And no matter how different it seems we all are from one another, we are not. We all are the same creature and share the same desire to live life.

When we create imaginary lines and boundaries and label regions and look at the differences in one another we no longer focus on the most important characteristic we all share, humans living life. When we find ways to become connected and share ideas and have a genuine desire to take in and absorb the ideas of others then we make this journey much easier. And not just easier in the here and now, but easier on the future generations as well. And we create the possibility of generations living in other places besides this small little rock we call our home in a tiny little neighborhood. When we get caught up in just taking care of our immediate needs and desires we lose focus on some of the more important issues. Looking into treating our planet better becomes a debate and we talk about the "cost" of doing it, insane. When we focus on ourselves we no longer place a priority on funding space exploration and divert our money and resources into more immediate and temporary fixes. When we view things from our self serving agendas long term thinking extends in terms of our lifespans and days and weeks and months and years seem more relevant than millennium. How we are going to pay for something right now, this year, this week becomes far more important than how we are going to fund something that won't benefit us anytime soon.

We often look at tasks or problems or fixes and feel overwhelmed by the implementation of their solutions. However, most things are accomplished taking one step at a time. Something as simple as wanting to read the views of others, whether or not you agree with them, is a step in the right direction. There are so many things, in fact, the vast majority of everything, that are beyond our control. So when we have a chance to actually guide the course it would seem we should take full advantage of this opportunity and embrace it. It doesn't even have to be hard and can even be fun. Something as simple as being connected to your other fellow humans.

When we look back on our short history and identify major marks that changed our course we can find them. If our own species lives on millions of generations into the future and occupies other neighborhoods in our universe they will certainly be able to look back at their ancestors and do the same. The creation of the internet will be one of those moments where our course was altered if we do live on. It is a tool. It's a tool that allows us to come together, to learn at exponentially faster rates than people did just a few short years ago. It also allows us to enjoy our existence in the here and now, we can share our days, our thoughts, our families, our entire lives with one another. We can help and lift each other. We can teach one another and open minds. The potential is limitless and the benefits range well beyond life in this neighborhood. And if our future generations try to put all the pieces together and figure out how it is we evolved and became fit to survive this planet and go beyond they will undeniably look at the time when we figured out how to unite and become one creature, a whole.

This is why I am humbled by those of you that go out of your way to read this blog and see what I'm up to. My ego isn't who I am. I am you. When I challenge you I am challenging me. And that you want to learn more about you by keeping tabs on me is the most humbling thing of all.