The Reactions

                Life is an amazing thing. With the knowledge we have, we assume life is extremely rare. The perfect conditions over billions of years are what led us from tiny single celled organisms to the amazing diversity that is our animal kingdom and our small world of unique microorganisms. The odds of life occurring elsewhere seem impossible with so many chemical reactions and situations that had to occur in perfect order for life to form.

                The thing that makes life run is the microscopic world.  Every mechanism and decision we have is biased on chemical reactions and microorganisms. This month, scientist found that bacteria in our stomach can signal and control our brain to get what they want. They control our moods, our hunger patterns, and our cravings. Read more here (http://universityofcalifornia.edu/news/do-gut-bacteria-rule-our-minds).  These tiny bacteria do everything they can to make us hate ourselves, whether it’s those donuts for breakfast or that entire bag of chips that you’re eating when you said you would have “just one”.  Getting us all fattened up and chubby is what these bacteria and microbes desire.  It’s amazing how such tiny microbes can have such a “huge” (pun-intended) effect on the person as a whole.

                From another perspective the world around us just seems so gigantic when you look at the stars, the galaxy and the universe. You feel like just a tiny speck when it comes to the world around you. But you should feel special.  We, the animals of the world are made up of millions of cells and mini ecosystems which in turn make us who we are. Some tiny microbes make us hungry, get us in a bad mood, it is not us, it is all controlled by small, nonexistent to the naked eye microbes and organisms.

                Another odd thing about us is that our consciousness, our image, our personality is probably made up of tiny reactions and microbes. Our “big” world is just a puppet of things going on at these microscopic levels. Our brain for example, based on current science, is made of neurons that are just electrocuted and sending signals throughout the brain. This is what makes us think.  It’s mindboggling to me that such a complicated thing as the mind and our thoughts are controlled by some ions shooting across a membrane. Our whole lives, everything we see and hear that is living is just controlled by some charged atoms.  It seems kind of shallow to me, like we haven’t gotten the whole story, which we probably haven’t.   I feel like something is missing and that our minds, consciousness and everyone else’s can’t just be made from an electrical charge. To me, it just defeats the purpose of life, if all we are is a bunch of chemical reactions. I want more to life than that. Why do we get emotional? Why do we have such strong feelings? Is it just giving us a better chance to survive and reproduce? I don’t want to just reproduce and die like everyone else. And although scientist are far from knowing everything, I still want to live with a purpose other than making little Adams and surviving to the best of my abilities. I want to express myself, share with others, and other cheesy things. Not just be another tool in the evolutionary and biological system, trying to keep our species the best and the fittest.