“Thus, this supremely perfect order of the Universe goes on all around us. But the structure is so vast, and our thinking so ego-centered, that we mistake perfect order for randomness” Michael A Singer from Three Essays on Universal Law.
Whenever I get too caught up in my thinking mind, or I listen to my ego swelling in size, telling me about ‘all my problems’ I bring my attention over to the delights of how insanely small we as humans are, and to remind myself of how fortunate I am.
Just how big is it all? There are an estimated 5-10x more stars in the universe than all the grains of sands on all the beaches on our planet.
Why are we sooo busy? Ants are non stop creatures, and our human activity is frequently referred to as ‘busy little ants’. On average, a single worker ant would take 250 naps each day, with each one lasting just over a minute. That equates to 4 hours and 48 minutes of sleep a day. It is estimated there are between one and ten quadrillion ants on Earth. That’s over 1 million ants per human. There’s 7.4 billion of us.
How much do I value being able to see? Immensely. If you can read this easily you’re one of the fortunate, as am I for writing it. 285 million people are estimated to be visually impaired worldwide: 39 million are blind worldwide. There are 1 billion people who are illiterate and 2/3 of these are women.
I always feel humbled when I bring these kinds of things to mind. Immensely grateful and my ego is now very quiet and small in there indeed…
Jac x