Monday, August 20, 2012

Little Things Mean a Lot


The human body is amazing.  We are built with utmost care and precision.

But have you considered those pesky little gnats that fly around you when you’re trying to work?  When you squash one, it’s no bigger than the dot at the end of this sentence.  Yet, inside a gnat is a pulmonary system, a nervous system, a digestive system, a circulatory system, a skeletal system, and a reproductive system.  How on earth does all that get inside a teeny tiny gnat?

I can spend a day contemplating this miracle of creation as I’m in awe of how such little things have so much going on inside them.

Now, consider your brain.  The adult human brain weighs about three pounds and is the size of your two fists put together.  Yet, inside that little package lie not only billions of neurons, synapses, and such, it also contains every thought you’ve ever had, every sight you’ve ever seen, every word you’ve ever heard or spoken.

Let’s say you get an idea for a book and map the whole story out in your mind.  Once the story is written into a book, the physical book itself could never fit into an area the size of your brain.  And realize, every book you’ve ever read is stored in your brain.

Can you picture the house you grew up in?  The arrangement of the rooms, the color of the walls, the placement of your bed?  That entire house, as well as the surrounding neighborhood, is tucked away in your brain.  AND, surprise surprise, there’s still room left over for a lot more information.  Our brain is something we can never fill up.

Makes you feel rather special, doesn’t it?

And don't even ask me to consider the brain of a gnat.  My own brain might explode.

Today’s Quote:  People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.  St. Augustine

No comments: