Today was a good day, I was able to achieve some goal with work needed on my car and also had a very productive “think” session when walking. I was otherwise feeling fine, and started to think about being “special “ in the universe. As a ‘human self’ we want to be looked after in some way. We have whole belief systems built around the universe having a “special place” for humans.
I was considering the opposite. That the universe, while having life everywhere that it can, has No favourites. No favourite species, and no favourite individuals. Life happens, it has happened spectacularly on Earth, there is evidence is happened on Mars to some degree.
The cosmologist Fred Hoyle, wrote a book a long time ago called “Our place in the cosmos”. I found it in my twenties when I would spend most afternoons in the library after work, looking for answers. This was “early internet” libraries were still relevant!
Anyway, the book was about evidence for the hypothesis of “Panspermia “. That life is everywhere in the universe, being transmitted via comets and asteroids. Recently, discoveries in inert matter showing patterns of life like structures and interactions was another angle on the hypothesis that life doesn’t spontaneously “spawn” on a favourable world, but rather is ever present in a dormant form.
Relevance? Well, part of the hypothesis was that certain bacteria, and certain insects have dormant states which could in theory be preserved for millions of years before reanimating in favourable conditions. These types of creatures, bacteria, viruses, and some types of insects are all related to all sorts of bugs which make my life unpleasant at times. Mosquitoes, various virus, and parasites etc.
Linking that hypothesis of panspermia, and seeing that if true it was precisely these sometimes unpleasant to me, a human, creatures that enable there to be life at all in the universe, gave me something to really enjoy!
Looking around at the river, feeling my skin occasionally itch, seeing a mosquito or a fly. Considering the vast variety of life all around me, on me, and in me*, gave me something to both appreciate, and also dispel some of the “special” I feel I should be.
*side note; humans are a minority in their own bodies, based on cell count. There are more bacteria, parasites et all on and in the human body than there are human cells. The web tells me about 10-30% more.