How You’re Made of History
Here’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever learned.
For you to read these words, trillions of atoms had to assemble to create you. This particular arrangement is so unique, it has happened only once, and it makes you.
For your lifetime, these atoms work together to keep you alive. And when you die, their devotion ends. They quietly disassemble and move on to become something else.
But…
Atoms can’t be created or destroyed, at least not in everyday chemical reactions. They just rearrange, like burning wood, digesting food, or rusting metal. The total number of atoms stays the same.
What does this mean?
You’ve Been Here Before
You are made of atoms that have been part of countless other things since the beginning of time.
For Example:
The carbon in your body might have once been part of a tree, a dinosaur, or an ancient volcano
The oxygen you breathe may have passed through the lungs of prehistoric animals or floated in the skies of Earth for billions of years
The hydrogen in your water molecules is over 13 billion years old
Because atoms are reused and recycled constantly, it’s entirely possible that some of the atoms in you were once in:
A wooly mammoth
A medieval farmer
A star that exploded long ago
So you’re made of atoms that have been part of all kinds of “random” things in the past. In a sense, you are made of history.
And You’ll Be Here Again
This means your body, made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and other elements, will return to the Earth, the sky, or even space.
The carbon in your cells might one day be part of a tree, a bird, or a new person
The water in your body will evaporate, fall as rain, and nourish future life
Your atoms may settle in rocks, oceans, or clouds
At the most basic level, we’re just atoms in motion, part of something far bigger than ourselves.
Knowing this will humble you. In my case, it put my daily stressors in perspective. A lot of our problems come when we think of ourselves as too big, too separate, too central.
And yet, we’re one of a kind. No one else has ever been arranged like you, nor will they be again.
It's like we’re the universe, noticing itself, and that’s something worth honoring.
The book that helped me write this post: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
