Thinking Outloud

I was thinking this morning about how far we have come as a race in the last 100 years or so.  I was thinking about the incredibly small segment of human history that’s experienced electricity, much less the Internet.  Leanna and I were talking last night about our most prized possessions.  What one thing do I value over all others.  I didn’t even have to think about it.  The most important inanimate object in my life is my computer. 

I use my computer everyday.  It’s my notebook, my calendar, my dictionary, my encyclopedia.  It’s my sketchbook, my television, my cookbook, my radio.  I use my computer to coordinate get togethers, and talk to friends.  I use my computer to keep up with current events, and to play games.  My computer is my voice.  I get to carve out my little slice of the Internet, and maintain this blog.  The personal computer is so ubiquitous, that it would be hard to imagine life without one. 

Written history began between five and six thousand years ago.  It is impossible for me to comprehend such a stretch of time.  That’s about fifty five, one hundred year cycles.  I have to look four generations back to find an ancestor that lived before 1900.  I can barely imagine what life was like 100 years ago.  I can begin to mentally subtract out the daily conveniences in my life, in an attempt to visualize how things might have been but my vision of any time before the American Revolution is mostly based on high school history classes, and movies.

As many things change, some have stayed the same.  There’s something about being out in the woods.  Something to be said for not being surrounded by civilization.  It’s a strange connection to those who came before me, but a walk through untamed wilds has remained relatively unchanged over the last 5,000 years.  There are parts of the human condition that, for the foreseeable future, will remain as they have always been.  Some are emotions; anger, greed, envy, lust, and  love.  But some are physical; pain, hunger, pleasure, birth, and death.

Estimates suggest that the world population first reached one billion people around the year 1800.  In the 210 years since then, the world population has increased to over 6.5 billion.  And while most estimates predict our highest annual growth rates have passed, the population is still growing.  Trending shows that we’ll reach 8 billion by 2025, and 9 billion by 2040.  So what does that mean for me?  Likely next to nothing.  Being one of 6.5 billion, or 9 billion, seems statistically insignificant.  It will undoubtedly raise some difficult questions for future generations though.

It’s impossible to determine how many people have ever lived on planet Earth, but estimates put it around 115 billion.  To think that I am one of 115 billion.  Some days, I don’t give it a second thought.  I guess most days just pass by, and the nature of my existence is largely irrelevant to me.  But, there are times when it washes over me like a ten foot tidal wave; both terrifying and wondrous all at once.  There are those nights when I stare up at the stars, and really try to grasp their nature; when I actually try and understand what the word ”light-year” really means.

Ryan