AMAZING THINGS A LOT PEOPLE DON’T SEEM TO REALIZE ARE AMAZING

 There are many amazing things depending on you to realize they are amazing. In other words, if your eyes aren’t open to how amazing things are then nothing will seem amazing to you, which reveals, unfortunately, unfortunate things about your desire to learn and grow. It can reveal how much we take for granted. It can reveal arrogance and closed mindedness. I personally find a mind that can’t be amazed any more to be a little scary.

Consider: What does it take to amaze you? Do things have to explode? Does the world have to be a brand new circus everyday, putting on a show just for you in order to get some kind of response? Perhaps you aren’t seeing things that are right in front of you.

I certainly hope this is not the case. For anyone.

If you don’t know what I mean, I hope you figure it out. And to help people along, here are just a few examples of some amazing things a lot of people don’t seem to realize are amazing. Feel free to share some of yours if you are so inclined...

1. Bass players who sing lead vocals and play bass at the same time.

Guys like Sting and Geddy Lee. Paul McCartney. I seem to remember the guy from Thin Lizzy doing this as well. But it is fairly rare to see someone sing and play bass at the same time. Even more rare is the lead singer/bass player. You know why? Because it’s, like, stinkin’ impossible, that’s why. I have tried it. I can’t really play bass, but I definitely can’t sing lead vocals and play bass at the same time. Some players get away with it by basically playing root notes, plunk plunk plunk. Like Gene Simmons of Kiss. Not the same thing. I’m talking about guys who actually, really, genuinely play complex bass parts, peddling through the chords, while singing at the same time. I don’t know why it’s so impossible, but it is. More impossible than playing drums and singing, or playing accordion and singing, which is also very difficult, or so I’m told. But I’m telling you, if you see someone playing bass and singing lead vocals at the same time, be amazed. It is amazing. Probably the only thing more amazing would be a person playing a wind instrument and singing at the same time. I’ve honestly never seen that. I assume it's impossible, but what do I know? Still, if you see this kind of thing, bass guitars or otherwise, whether you realize it or not, you are witnessing something amazing.

2. Everyone’s kids.

Everyone thinks their own kids are amazing. And yet, to other people, they are just normal kids. Therefore, the inclination is to believe that the people with kids are biased and their kids are not actually amazing. But, in fact, the kids are amazing. All of them. Every single one. And if you don’t think so, it’s because you don’t get it. But that’s okay. You’re still amazing too.

3. Empty space.

Sure, seems boring, because it’s nothing. But if it’s nothing, then how is it still “there” in any way that makes sense? And if it wasn’t “there” what would be the difference between here and the “there” beyond the "there" of empty space? Some physicists argue, like Einstein did, that there is really no such thing as “empty” space because fields, such as gravity, fill all so-called “space,” including a vacuum, which is the ultimate empty space, I suppose. And I get what they are saying.

Kind of.

But that “space” is still there, isn’t it? In other words, the space is not, itself, the gravitational field that is “in” the space, right? Even if that empty space couldn’t exist without the forces acting on it and within it, what exactly is that thing that the gravitational field is occupying? Maybe it’s not technically empty, but it’s practically empty. And it’s space.

Perhaps we should call it empty space/time?

Okay. I seriously have no idea what I’m talking about anymore.

But I still think it’s amazing.


Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2012

Massively Massive

From what I’ve read, the amount of atoms in one molecule of DNA is pretty close to the same as the number of stars in a typical galaxy.

Is there any way at all to actually understand that reality? I don’t think so.

Creation is massive, both in the macro and the micro sense. Massive, massive, massive. Mind bogglingly massive.

There’s something about the scale of the Universe that messes with my mind. And it keeps messing with my mind. Not just that it’s so big or so small, but that it’s so big AND so small. Like, on any beach, there are countless grains of sand, but there are also these single grains of sand that make up the whole thing. The single grain has its complexities, and the whole beach has it’s complexities. It seems to me that being human isn’t much different in some ways. It’s estimated that there are nearly 7 billion people on the earth. I am 1 of 7 billion.

Seven. Billion.

And how many mosquitoes are there? And how many ants? And how many birds? And leaves? And flowers?

In my front yard there is some grass. It’s not the nicest grass in the neighborhood. That award would go to my next door neighbor, Jerry. But it is a marvelous layer of grass, nevertheless, simply because it is massive in it’s way. How many blades of grass are there out there? A million? Who knows. And yet, each blade has it’s own beauty and complexity. The whole thing boggles the mind. At least it boggles my mind.

And then there is space. Outer space. The galaxy. The Universe. It is massively massive. How many rocks are there in the universe? How many packets of light? How many stars?

Just our galaxy, the Milky Way, if you were to drive across it at around 60 MPH, it would take you about a million billion years to cross it. It is approximately 620 million billion miles across. Million billion? But the universe makes that look like a drop in the bucket. They say it’s around 90 billion trillion miles across (if “across” even makes any sense with curved space).

So. Why do I mention all this?

Just because.



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011