(Lilly checks herself out in the mirror. Taken with my mobile phone).
Of all the strange things that happen in the universe, there’s one that is stranger than anything else.
On our small planet alone live more than 6 billion people. Another 6 billion people have already lived and died here. Yet of all those people that live, or have lived and died, one of them thinks that they are “me”.
Billions of people experience the world, but by some wierd contortion of cosmic reaility I get to “be” one of those people. I get to see things through “my” eyes; hear things through “my” ears; touch, taste, smell and feel things from “my” perspective.
How did the 10,298,453,312th human to be born become “me”? Why me and not someone else?
Science can explain how we arrived here as a species. That in itself is strange enough. But can anyone explain where self-awareness came from?
Awareness of self brings with it both triumph and tragedy. While we exalt in experiencing the universe, we become painfully aware of our own mortality: a hundred and fifty years ago there was no “me” to experience things; a hundred and fifty years from now there will be no “me” again. We are all born, live and die.
All we have is the wonderful “now”!
