I probably repeat myself here, sometimes. I mean, when you write a blog every day for the past 12 years, you are bound to repeat a few things. That’s more than 4,380 days’ worth of blogs, but who is counting.
Here are a few things I know about myself, today.
I like a sloth. I surely do. They have an arsenal of hidden talents, and if you don’t pay attention, you might just miss one or two. Like this fact.
Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins can. Plain and simple. Somebody said to a sloth, “Okay. Start now!” And started the stopwatch. Same, same, for the dolphin. The sloth won every dang time.
But seriously. By slowing their heart rates, sloths can hold their breath for up to 40 minutes. Dolphins need to come up for air after about ten minutes. And there it is.
More things I have learned started early on.
I didn’t get much cereal as a kid. I wasn’t bitter about this. Not at all. Because I had fried eggs, fried bologna, and white toast every morning, come rain or shine.
Besides. I knew cereal was a scam. A big fatty scam. Like this. Froot Loops are all the same flavor. It is true. You can no longer say that you don’t like the green ones and that reds are the best. They all taste alike. In fact, if you ever had any doubt, just check the name. They all taste like froot.
On to another thing about me. I like to swim in the ocean. Sometimes. If the water is good. But here is the thing about the ocean. It is a very big place, and I am but a flick of a human being. Don’t take my word for it. Seawater covers approximately 139,000,000 square miles of the planet. In other words? That is 71% of the Earth’s surface. This massive space also holds over 99% of the Earth’s area that can be inhabited by life.
That means there is a LOT beneath. So when I dip my toes into that water, I must remember what might be below. Like the big blue whale.
How big? Big. The tongue of a blue whale weighs as much as an elephant. Just. The. Tongue.
Those big spouty mammals are 110 feet long, at their biggest, and can weigh up to 150 tons. By comparison, elephants only weigh only 4.5 tons. The average weight of our cars is around 2 tons. So, when you think blue whale, think 75 cars.
It seems like a blue whale could easily swallow me if I were swimming in her ocean, though I am not sure she would ever do such a thing, as they are gentle giants. In fact, of all those big whales out there, only one species is even capable of swallowing something the size of a human. And that would be the sperm whale. But they don’t.
So our man Jonah probably just ate some bad mushrooms and dreamed the whole belly of the whale thing. That’s my guess.
What we should worry about in the water is something small, not large. It is called the box jellyfish, also known as the sea wasp. That little booger is barely visible to the naked eye, at just one cubic centimeter in size. No matter. It can kill an adult in less than three minutes.
So those are some things I know about myself today.
I know we are all here together in this big world. We’ve all seen Froot Loops, not to mention long-winded sloths.
We’ve dabbed our tootsies in the big blue ocean, and by touching that water, we have simultaneously touched billions of creatures, sharing that same water, the world around.
And every time we take a breath? We share the same exact air as eight billion others, all contained in our atmosphere. So. It becomes our good way to respect the whole of things and be grateful for the fact that we are here.
Our lives can be filled with contentment, which comes from appreciation. Every day I say a heartfelt “thanks” to the Universe for giving me the capacity to learn and exist meaningfully.
And to breathe like a sloth.
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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
— Socrates
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I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.
— Richard P. Feynman
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Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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