Here is something good.
Every atom in your body has been on an incredible journey. You see, we are made of stuff from the Universe.
The iron in our blood was forged in the heart of a massive star billions of years before the Sun existed. The calcium in our bones and the oxygen we breathe were also created inside those ancient stars. The ones that were scattered across the galaxy when those stars exploded as supernovae.
Everything came from that moment of existence.
In a very real, scientific sense, we are made of recycled stardust.
And the story doesn’t end there. Every breath we take contains molecules that were once breathed by countless people throughout history. How is that to think about? Are you breathing the same oxygen molecule that Jesus breathed in and out? Or on the other end of the spectrum, Hitler?
It’s totally true. Some of the oxygen we’re inhaling today almost certainly passed through the lungs of incredible and amazing people. That same oxygen was here during the lives of Leonardo da Vinci, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Lassie, and so many more. Yes. Millions of ordinary people have breathed that air too. People we will never know. Earth’s atmosphere has been mixing for billions of years.
I find something pretty amazing about that. We often think of ourselves as separate from everything else. But the truth is, physics tells a different story. We are part of one long, continuous chain of matter and energy stretching back to the beginning of the Universe. To the beginning of time.
Carl Sagan once said: “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”
And with that, may we always breathe in the world around us. May we always pay attention and be curious.
Every day, there is something new to learn, some connection to discover. Every day, there might be some question nobody has ever asked in quite the same way before. Life keeps offering wonder.
I told you I had something good to tell you.
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“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” — Socrates
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“We are all connected; to each other, biologically. To the Earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe, atomically.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson
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“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” — Carl Sagan
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