My mother used to tell me that I could be anyone I wanted to be when I grew up. That somewhere inside me there was a great writer, a great artist, a great philosopher, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
I didn’t know until recently how right she was.
I was listening to Bill Bryson’s brilliant book, A Short History of Nearly Everything. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. And if the origins of you and the universe seem a little too daunting, he wrote a shorter version for kids, just hitting on the high points.
The book is a real barn burner from the very start, as he tells the amazing story of the miracle we call us. I’ll give you a few highlights:
For reasons unknown to us, trillions of atoms assemble together to create the you that is “you”. They will stay together on average for about 650,000 hours, then they will work collectively to shut you down. They eventually disassemble and move on to create other things. As the basic laws of physics tell us, you can not create new matter. Every atom that exists was here at the beginning of the universe. Since the beginning of time, they simply recycle themselves over and over again. The building blocks of you, the chair you’re sitting in and the computer you’re using to read this.
Atoms, of course, don’t really live. They aren’t alive. But they combine to create life. For what reason, none of us knows. They could have just as easily gone off and met one another to create a desk or a pencil. Instead, they created you.
That was a big enough thought. But Bill doesn’t let us off there. He goes on to really make you feel special, reminding us that 99.9% of all the life that has ever existed on earth since time began, is no longer here. Man is. And through a miraculous set of circumstances, your ancestors (and mine) managed not to be eaten or killed long enough to find someone who found them attractive enough to have sex with them, exchanging the DNA that brought you to life in the process.
Wow!
But it was one statement in particular that I found even more fascinating than the Big Bang and everything that happened afterwards to create us. He almost casually mentions that using simple math formulas, all the atoms created have recombined in such a way over the centuries that each of us could have as many as 1 billion atoms of someone like William Shakespeare in us.
Now, I don’t know if Will’s atoms are in me or not, but I have come to some basic conclusions of who is part of me and who isn’t.
Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t have a real violent streak. Liek anyoen I will get my panties in a bunch now and then. But I have never hit another human being in my life, outside of my brothers. So I don’t think I have a lot of atoms of the real bad boys in history. Hitler, not likely. His atoms didn’t have too many years to blow around in the world before I was born. Attila the Hun would be more likely, given the passage of time. And it makes me laugh when someone calls me “Hun,” as in “Hun, could you hand me the blanket.” But yet the temptation to go all Mongol on her ass just isn’t there.
I know for a fact that there is absolutely no Henry Ford in me or anyone else with an engineering/mechanical background. When a friend has a new car and opens the hood to show me the engine, I just nod vacantly, barely knowing that that is, in fact, an engine. I do have a bit of Thomas Edison in me, however, since I know how to change a lightbulb. Barely.
I love to perform, but I’m not a great musician. I’m certainly no Mozart. So he can’t be there. Hemingway was still alive when I was born, so that rules him out in the writing category. Art Buchwald, one of my writing heroes, only died recently, so no chance there. Rembrandt has been long dead, but I can’t draw and I really don’t like painting – the walls of my house testify to this as they crack and peel.
So that leaves me wondering. Who the hell is in me? Whose billions of atoms am I possessed with?
I know what atoms other people have. Ever heard the term, “Dumb as a rock?” Now you know where they go theres.
I guess that’s why I’ve had an identity crisis all these years. It’s never required therapy. But it has vexed me. Before I read Bill’s book I had spent years trying to figure out who I am. And just when I thought I got it all figured out, WHAM! — Bill hits me with this billion atoms of Shakespeare tidbit.
Damn you Bill! I am so tempted to go postal on ya. But I don’t think I have any Ben Franklin in me either. Damn, damn and double damn.
On behalf of the trillions of atoms that make me me,
— Robb