Every once in a while, I’m struck by the sheer absurdity of our planet. Here we are, a bitty little rock stuck out in space, whipping around a flaming ball of gas in some backwater galaxy in a universe we can never hope to understand. We’re just one rock among a billion billion billion others—or some number so astronomically and inconceivably high that it seems statistically likely that at least one other lonely rock would harbor something we might recognize as life.
And can we talk about life? Planet Earth houses about 7.2 billion humans and untold further billions of insects, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other mammals. And that’s just the animals we can see. Each human body hosts an estimated 1014 bacterial cells. The next time you feel lonely, remember that between one and three percent of your body is composed of total strangers. And that’s 1014 bacteria for every one of those 7.2 billion people. And—what’s this? Every teaspoon of soil on Earth can contain as many as 1 billion living bacterial cells? Every teaspoon, you say? And our planet is how big?
Earth is ridiculously, obscenely alive. And the vast majority of that life is really weird.
I mean, have you ever truly pondered a tree? Every 50-foot-tall oak tree started out as a tiny nub of tissue in an acorn the size of your thumbnail. With nothing but air, light, water, and some soil ions, that nub of potential tree became an actual, honest-to-god pillar of wood covered in the world’s most efficient solar panels. And the whole point of the tree is not to produce oxygen or timber or shade or fruit, but to squeeze out more tissue nubs and create more trees, which create more trees, which create…
If trees don’t make you geek out, then pick something, anything. Elephants? Take a good, long look at an elephant. If you stare long enough, an elephant stops being a friendly zoo animal and morphs into a lumbering prehistoric beast with a hose for a nose. And what’s up with the echidna? What kind of creature has spikes built into its fur?
Not crazy enough for you? Then look at the blobfish or tarsier or platypus. Try convincing me that the proboscis monkey and yeti crab don’t look like visitors from another planet. Man, terrestrial life is weird.
And we humans get to enjoy the party. So find a window and admire the way the wind plays in the little green solar panels attached to the nearest tree. Ponder the absurdity of a squirrel’s tail. Look at your hand, wiggle your fingers, and thank the lightning storm of electrical energy in your skull that allows you to move and talk and think and be.
Singer-songwriter Ryan O’Neal writes in his song “Emphasis” that “life is a gorgeous, broken gift.” We’re pretty good at pondering life’s brokenness. Let’s celebrate just how gorgeous a gift it is.
Geneva Langeland (’13) survived graduate school with minimal blood loss, escaping with her ms in environmental policy and communication. She now works in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as the communications editor at Michigan Sea Grant. There, she gets to hang out with educators, researchers, and communicators who love the Great Lakes as much as she does.
