As a recent recipient of a melanoma, this pic makes me cringe. But some people can take the sun better than others - I have to now guard myself from overly bright lamps.
But it's true - we are just bags of mostly water. We are 70% water - if anything else were 70% of something, you'd say that is by far the dominant factor. Do you feel as if you are mostly water? Of course not. But it's true. Lesson: You can't always trust your common sense. Another example - does it seem like the Earth spins around the Sun, or the Sun spins around the Earth, based on your common sense? Yeah. And this is the true gift of Science - giving us the tools to reach beyond our own common sense, verily, our very senses.
Science - the systematic method of obtaining information through observation and experimentation. It allows humanity to exceed our biological limitations (senses) and perceive ever more deeply into the realities of time and space. For example - sunburns. They are literally the result of photons hitting our skin and damaging cells, causing them to "burn" as this physical impact imparts energy that heats up the target. I am in a perpetual state of awe as I learn more and more esoteric science facts but come to realize they are almost always grounded in processes we understand at a fundamental level - one object striking another. Fusion - the magic that runs this Universe - is the result of matter striking matter so often and so powerfully that it releases energy from the constituent matter in the form of electromagnetic radiation, which we ultimately see as light - which is defined as photons literally striking cells in our eye that then interpret this information as color and intensity, via our brain. Common sense is not common sense is common sense, in other words.
Also, too, remember Large Marge?
A passing resemblance.
We humans are special beyond compare, for we can perceive these High Truths of Science, while at the same time we are subject to the genetic imperatives that drive all life, everywhere (and there is life beyond this Earth, for sure. Just a matter of time before we have conclusive proof - which will happen in our lifetimes). We can, in theory, liberate ourselves from the genetic via our minds, via science, though this is exceedingly unlikely, for the genes are the drivers in most everything we do, and there's only one thing the genes want: To live on.
Sex and Mind. The two themes which define mankind. Which allows me to posit: Consider the miracle of the egg, which I recently heard described as "a way to bring the ocean with you wherever you go". And it's true - before the egg, all life had to give birth in water. After the egg, all the land was there for the taking, because the egg encases the ocean, and water is a requirement for life. For we are 70% water, after all. The rest is the dust and ashes cast off from generations of Stars that lived, swelled, and exploded, seeding the cosmos with oxygen, carbon, iron, indeed, everything we define as ourselves (not water).
Life is awesome, yeah?
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