Think of it this way: The
planet earth is estimated to be about 4.6 billion years old. For us humans to
be alive today, our very existence must have been there at the conception of
this planet. Of course humans did not just suddenly appear unexpectedly from nowhere;
something must have started or brought our life into existence. If you are a Christian
or Muslim or Hindu or subscribe to whatever faith, you will attribute the
genesis of life to be God or gods. The God or gods created the first humans from
the dust of the earth or from materials obtained from the universe. The humans
became fruitful and multiplied and filled the world and governed it. If you believe in science or Darwin theory you
will explain the origin of life to be a complex process called Abiogenesis. It
entails the formation of the first single cell that evolved over the billions
of years into the present Homo sapiens that ended up being at the apex of the
intelligence chain and dominated all creatures.
However, regardless of
what we think as the origin of human life all schools of thoughts agree that man
has walked on the surface of planet earth for as long as the planet was formed .
Therefore, for you to be alive at this moment it means, it is a result of a continuous
chain of successful reproduction spanning over billions of years, to the very
you right now. You can be confident that if you were to rewind time to 4.6
billion years ago you will meet your grandparent there. In fact, if you were to
take a flight backwards to the very start of this earth using your ancestral
family tree as your route and then start moving forward from there you will begin by seeing how your first parent
were made.
You will then witness how
they survived through harsh conditions with no fire, weapons, tools, cloths, medicine
and were greatly outnumbered by other species. More so, they survived without a
government to guarantee their security and life, might was right and life was
brutish, nasty and maybe short. Yet given this circumstances your original grandparents
survived and gave birth to another set of parents.
You will then witness how
your subsequent grandparents survived deadly plagues that had devastating
effect on the existence of humanity and periodically great populations were entirely swept out of the planet. Yet your grandparents
survived and gave birth to another set of grandparents. You will then witness how
child birth was like a death sentence since there was no vaccines, no pre &
post natal care and rarely did any expectant mother survive child birth and subsequently,
the child would die due to lack of mother’s care. Yet given this conditions that
claimed many humans your grandparents gave birth to another set of your
grandparents. You will then witness your grandparents engage in violent acts,
actually violence was the order of the day, bloods feuds were all over and
murder was so usual and there was no recourse for it, terms like justice,
freedom and rights had no space in this age. Yet your grandparents survived and
gave birth to another set of your grandparents.
You will then witness
linage after linage surviving famines, dangerous journeys, violent childhood
and infancy. You will then witness humans trying to get organized forming
groups, clans and then kingdoms. Still on your flight, you will see the
Egyptians kingdom building their behemoth pyramids from the ground. Maybe you
will witness the rise of the Persian Empire & the creation of Money, the
rise of the Roman Empire & the development of democracy and how many other
kingdoms and empires rose and collapsed. You will then witness the age of enlightenment
where humans struggled to push ignorance away by applying science and
mathematics to discover the hidden truth of life, maybe you will see Plato and Socrates
having philosophical discussions on various wonders of the world at the school
of Athens. You will see the Chinese empire beginning the construction of the Great
Wall of China. As you continue flying forward you will then witness the birth
of Jesus Christ and maybe see him being crucified at Golgotha, you will witness
the Rise of the Islamic Golden Age and the prophet Mohamed crisscrossing the
deserts to spread Islam. You will then see birth of religious wars that
continue up to date.
Still on your flight
moving forward, you will then see Martin Luther nailing his 95 thesis on the
door of the All Saint’s church in Germany and leading the great Reformation
that gave birth to the protestant churches. Then you will see the American
Revolution followed by the French Revolution. You will witness Africans been
forced into ships and sailed like goods to far lands as slaves. You will
witness African Countries fighting for their independence against colonialism. You will then witness the dark side of the civilized
man through the World War I & II and the dropping of the deadly Atomic bomb
by USA on japan. You will then see the
first man –Neil Armstrong- landing on the moon. You will then witness the construction
and the fall of the Berlin wall and you will then understand how all these circumstances
affected your grandparents at the time and therefore created ripples that have
affected you to your present self.
Then you will begin seeing
familiar faces maybe your great grandparents of this century, then your grandparents.
Then you will see your parents and the very exceptional, unique and timely circumstances
that led to them meeting and finally you will witness the rare chain of events
that led to your parents making love on that day or night when this particular
ova was just there ready to be fertilized and your father released this
particular sperm that raced to the fallopian tube and fertilized the ova and
your conception happened.
You will see yourself grow
through the various stages of life up to now at this very moment, you reading
this article. You will then realize that the blood that flows in your veins has been
passed from one linage to another over the last 4.6 billion years. Isn’t that realization
awesome? This may sound normal and not really awesome. But if you picture the
harsh and cruel condition that your ancestors survived over the billions of
years you will realize that your very existence is self-evidence that you’re
the most perfect gene that has survived through unimaginable circumstances and
among the many genes that perished along the way, the gene that flows in your
blood has survived it all. Or maybe you
will realize that life is a very delicate experiment that would have gone wrong
at any time and ended your very existence so many years ago and for you to be alive
right now reading this article is just miraculous.
You may also end up
agreeing with Carl Sagan who said, “We are made of star stuff.” Since the
origin of the universe has the same source. You will also realize that all
humans originate from one tree and that your family tree is actually a branch
forming part of a tree that germinated from one seed of humanity. We should therefore
develop a deeper sense of belonging in one another and we can all agree with
Martin Luther King Jr. when he said, “In
a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable
network of mutuality. Tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one
directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you
are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am
what I ought to be… this is the inter-related structure of reality.” So when
you see any being, treat it with kindness, that’s your brother or sister we
have a common origin and destiny.
photo by Behance
