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Sunday, March 6, 2011

Taking It For Granted.

"Was I bored? No, I wasn't fuckin' bored. I'm never bored. That's the trouble with everybody-- you're all so bored. You've had nature explained to you, and you're bored with it. You've had the living body explained to you, and you're bored with it. You've had the universe explained to you, and you're bored with it. So now you want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn't matter how tawdry or vacuous they are, as long as it's new, as long as it flashes and fuckin' bleeps in forty fuckin' different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I'm not fuckin' bored." - Johnny "Naked" movie, 1993



So, my boyfriend and I were actually having a discussion earlier. It started with me saying, "you know what's cool? I'm talking to some of my Coffee Shop friends right now. Loads is in Australia, Cowgirl is in the UK, and I'm in the US, and we're all talking right now!" (Loads and Cowgirl are usernames, by the way).

Isn't that cool, though? Three people, in three completely different countries, talking at the same time, to each other. It's amazing what technology has done in the past few years. Computers weren't even invented until a few decades ago, and even then, they didn't have "Internet."

My boyfriend, who's training to be an EMT, said, "you wanna know what else is cool? The average heart rate is 60-100 beats per minute when resting, and it beats our whole lives. Think about how many beats that is, we live until about what, 70, 80? That's like, billions of beats." Probably more like trillions, but still lol.

In my Physical Anthropology book, which has a lot to do with biology, it says, "it is estimated that the entire human genome contains about 3 billion base pairs." When someone asks you what is inside of your body, you'd answer with something similar to, "muscles, blood, bones, organs, and a breakfast burrito." But when you think about it deeper, there are over 3 billion things inside of you, even if they are microscopic. The human body is a really amazing thing when you think about it.

And that's what I love about that quote, from Johnny. I found this quote a few years ago, and when I first read it, it made me realize just how much we take for granted nowadays. We have figured out what makes us work, what each organ does, how to fix things that go wrong. And not even just that, we've discovered different cells and genes and DNA and so much more that helps make us work.

But now, when we're in biology class, we're not fascinated by this. Why not? We have the answer to life right at our hands, in a book, that we're getting  for free (at least in high school) and what do we do? Wish class would end faster. How ignorant can we get? And when we get a new phone, or iPod, or a video game, we can explore those for hours. Not that how a cellphone works isn't interesting, but it's less interesting than how the human body works. In my opinion, at least.

Then there's the universe. The UNIVERSE! We haven't exactly figured that out yet, it's still one of the biggest mysteries to us, but we've gone so far in figuring out small things. Like the moon. We've been to the moon. These past few generations have been places and figured things out that our ancestors would never have thought possible. We've managed to launch ourselves into the sky, past the ozone layer, and onto the moon, and back down to Earth, safely. SAFELY. We've entered a non-oxygen territory, and came back alive! Not to mention all of the unknown things in the universe. Why doesn't this interest us like it should or used to?

We really take things for granted. You may be thankful for what you have, which is always good, but do you ever think about how you got it, where it came from, how it got there and what people had to do to make that, just so your life could be more convenient?

I'm a lurker on Yahoo! Answers, I go on and answer a bunch of questions for people that they could easily find out themselves if they learned of this awesome site called "Google," but that's not what I'm getting at. What I mean is that so many people ask such simple questions, like, "if I have sex without a condom but he pulls out, could I get pregnant?" This was taught to all of us in Sex Education class. But no, we didn't pay attention, did we? Or maybe you did, you're the good student.

Hell, we even know how to MAKE A HUMAN. Sperm and egg. They are not made of flesh, or bone, they're not little floating organs that just attach themselves and make a baby. They're small little cells, that form all of that stuff. Muscles and bones and skin and organs, made from two microscopic cells that live inside of us.

Are you fascinated yet? Because you should be. I could drag on with this for a while, but for the sake of the length of this post, I'll stop. For now :)

Just thought it was really funny :)

6 comments:

  1. Teehee, I've always been interested in the human body. That's why I want to be a doctor of some sort. But, since I can't deal with blood and what not, I'm going to be a psychologist. :] And the universe is super interesting.
    I am very fascinated by this post, lol. You can make a part 2 of this post to go on some more, haha.
    -Jodie-Ann

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  2. This might seem a bit trite, but how does this effect you? I’m not being sarcastic (someties tone gets lost) I’m curious as to how this motivates you. If you could learn about anything what would that be?

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  3. I'd like to learn pretty much anything, I spend a lot of my time online reading the NYTimes, Huffington, or yahoo news, especially the health sections and stuff. It motivates me because it's just interesting lol I have the answers to pretty much everything right at my hands, all I have to do is read it, maybe do some research to understand it more, but if anyone takes the time to realize the importance of biology or anthropology, you could learn and solve many things just yourself. Doesn't help to be more knowledgeable.

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  4. Oh yet another thoughtful post, Angela! I love reading your blogs, seriously. It kinda makes me stop and think about things I normally would just let go right by, because I'm so damn focused on other things right now. I just miss a lot of the important things.

    I was using the Scale of the Universe again a few days ago, and I had that "OMG" epiphany moment, ya know, like, "OMG we're not the center of the universe". The OMG moment happens everytime I use it (stress reliever lol) but then it just disappears and I'm left with watching random CollegeHumour videos online = = The moral of my story is that (lol moral haha.. wait this isn't even funny, okay moving on) I'm one of those ppl who never stop and fully think about things, and it's great that there are ppl like you who are able to fully think about them for us! And blogs are great to learn or relearn something new.

    Oh, yeah, I meant to say, I rly like your blog ^^

    And also, thanks for the youtube link!!!! Omg those girls are like my long-lost.. siblings? Haha. I just watched the anorak post and I realized how anorak-less my wardrobe is right now... I think I need to go thrifting for one hehe.

    love,
    Mimi.

    P.S. Tea tree oil is not bad for your skin. It's good! But it's a bit harsher than witch hazel, which was what I was getting at (hopefully haha). Sorry for the confusion. Oh and I've never heard of using hydrogen peroxide on the skin! I'll research it up a bit haha.

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  5. All I am going to say is that Naked is a fantastic movie and that I was thinking the exact same thing (regarding people from different countries being able to connect) as I was being savaged by a horde of foreigners on xbox live. Intelligent post is intelligent.

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  6. DID YOU KNOW THE UNIVERSE IS STILL EXPANDING o_O

    Yeah I was obsessed with it for a long time. I also study Biology so I totally understand what you're talking about.

    Your posts are really cool haha, but you probably knew that by now!

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You're already at the end of the post, the big white box is right there, so empty and lonely, why not leave some love? :)