Who You Are, Where You're From, & Why:
The full poem is below, but is also available for download.
Who You Are, Where You’re From, & Why:. © 2024 by Jasmine Gardner. All rights reserved.
Who You Are, Where You’re From, & Why:
Nobody knows what was before Nothing.
Then, Nothing.
A Big Bang, and then, Everything (You).
Energy exploded from a point, expanding at light speed (and still rapidly).
Condensing into matter, at E = mc2. Following laws of physics: entropy, motion, thermodynamics, relativity, quantum mechanics. Predetermined laws of fate?
Sub-subatomic particles formed into protons (+), neutrons (neutral), electrons (-).
Protons/neutrons, bound together by nuclear forces, formed atomic nuclei. Electromagnetic forces brought negatively-charged electrons into orbits around the positively-charged protonic nuclei.
The number of protons an atom has within its nucleus will determine its elemental/chemical properties, including how it bonds/interacts with other atoms – e.g., hydrogen has 1 proton, helium 2, oxygen 8.
At first, there were only hydrogen atoms, gravitating together in nebulas.
Centers in these clouds grew denser and hotter (motion is heat, heat is motion), the pressure ‘fused’ two hydrogen atoms, making one helium atom and releasing enormous energy, igniting a chain reaction, birthing stars which produced more and more complex atoms in their cores as more and more atoms fused together.
As nuclear fusion progresses and elements grow heavier in a star’s heart, the energy released by the process becomes trapped by gravity building up… eventually exploding trillions and trillions of atoms out into space (a ‘supernova’).
Gravity coalesces these atoms into planets which revolve around their birth star. The denser, metallic planets form near the suns, and the less-dense, airier planets form near the solar system’s edges, where the lighter elements escape to.
On certain planets (containing elements like hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, and sulfur – e.g., Earth), organic chemical reactions proceed, driven by the sun’s heat – like test tubes of organic precipitate floating in aqueous solution, rotating around a Bunsen burner – forming basic organic molecules, proteins, etc.
On Earth, basic organic blocks assembled into self-replicating strands of RNA and DNA, which lodged within simple cellular walls that would filter nutrients in from the outside world, allowing the ‘cells’ to grow, replicate their genetic material and proteins within the wall, and then divide. It’s possible that life began on Earth in this way, or perhaps it had begun on another planet and was transplanted here via a population of cells on a comet.
Single-celled organisms, through random mutations and/or sexual reproduction, diversified, some banding together to create multicellular colonies, like algae, sponges.
Sponges became less-fixed, more independent and free-floating, like jellyfish.
Jellyfish became more directional and intentional, developing a mouth at the head of a horizontal digestive tract, like a worm or a sea cucumber.
The worms and sea cucumbers kept ‘naturally selecting’ into trilobites, insects, spiders, crabs, slugs, snails, clams, squids, lampreys, fish – varying models of digestive tracts with front-brains, trying to figure out how to carry the mouth to the next meal(s).
The fish, with their strong backbones (good for swimming), diversified into sharks, rays, bony fish, lobed fish, and even one novel type of fish with leg-like fins that could crawl on land and a set of lungs that could pull oxygen out of thin air (a ‘tetrapod’).
The tetrapods became frogs, salamanders, lizards, alligators, and dinosaurs – including dinosaurs with scales, but some with feathers, and even tiny ones with warm blood and fur.
After millions of years, a comet near-instantaneously mass-extincted the giant reptiles, creating opportunities for the smaller mammals who then diversified into monotremes (i.e. egg-laying mammals; platypus), marsupials (kangaroo), rodents, rabbits, bats, hooved grazers (including those that ventured back into the waters, like manatees, sea lions, whales), fanged carnivores, lemurs, monkeys.
The mammals breast-fed their young, cared for them longer, allowing their brains to develop with increasing complexity. Social behaviors, networks, and cultures evolved. Monkeys became apes – gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, hominids.
Chimpanzees tend toward patriarchy, violence, and war. Bonobos tend toward matriarchy, love, and sex. Hominids seem in the middle. Maybe oscillating effectively between love and violence, depending on the context, led hominids to dominate.
It seems now, that the capacities for good and evil are within every human and, indeed, whether a given thought or action is to be considered ‘good’ or ‘evil’ may ultimately be a matter of perspective or ‘the eye of the beholder’. I.e., one group’s hero may be another group’s villain, etc. Ego rises as a personal hero to shield from the threat of evil.
Each individual is driven to cherish good and fight evil, as they see it. This drive sets their path through the universe, potentially a collision course with every other individual.
After oxygen, water, and food, humans crave love, which they see/feel as ‘good’. They feel pain and trauma when they are denied love, and this causes them to see/feel ‘evil’.
Individual humans, through their neuroanatomy, have certain abilities: intrapersonal, linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, and interpersonal, and maybe (probably) others, each to some degree. They also have personalities, consisting of honesty, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, each to some degree. Abilities and personalities which are developed intentionally and consistently over time lead to talents or ‘skills’.
Individual humans use these skills to create good and to destroy evil (as they see it), including by forming complex relationships and organizations with other humans and even other animals, plants, fungi, microorganisms.
These organizations have founders, leaders, managers, roles, goals, rewards, justice, in-groups, out-groups, and processes of attraction/selection/attrition, all of which create a dynamic or synergy of varying members, abilities/personalities/skills, resources, opportunities, motivations, contributions, and performances, relative to other organizations.
Early hunter-gatherer humans moved around East Africa in bands and tribes, eventually migrating to the Mediterranean, the Sahara, Arabia, India, Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia, East Asia, the Pacific Islands, Russia, North/Central/South America, (Mars).
Organizations became ‘civilizations’. Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Persia, Greece Rome, Spain, France, Britain, the Zulus, the Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Mongols, the Americans, the Soviets. Paganism, Taosim, Buddhism, Confucianism, Zen, Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Monarchy, feudalism, democracy, republicanism, capitalism, industrialism, communism, fascism. Tribal war, holy war, revolutionary war, civil war, world war, cold war, (nuclear war). Slavery, genocide, holocaust, (extinction).
Art. Poetry. Literature. Drawing. Painting. Photography. Music. Singing. Dancing. Laughing. Storytelling. Fairytales. Theater. Cinema. Games. Sports. Tournaments. Concerts. Festivals. Journeys. Adventures. Vacations. Reunions. Fashion. Cuisine. Aesthetics. Philosophy. Science. Math. Technology. Architecture. Medicine. Friends. Family. Love.
You, me, “I”, we, us. Everything. Nothing.
There is no “right answer”. There is nothing to “know”. There is no “I” that “thinks” – just a mass of energy manifesting itself in various, ever-changing and temporary ways, like waves on the surface of a deep ocean.
The SWEET LIFE might consist of:
• Sleep
• Water
• Exercise (including mental exercise, i.e., meditation)
• Eat well
• Thank (i.e., practice gratitude)
•
• Learn
• Innovate (i.e., apply what you learn)
• Feel (i.e., embrace your emotions and thoughts, even the ‘negative’ ones)
• Engage (i.e., spend time with loved ones)
Be true to yourself, respect and love others as unique equals, make friends, build communities, walk through nature, plant seeds, water.
Breathe. Live.
The full poem is below, but is also available for download.
Who You Are, Where You’re From, & Why:. © 2024 by Jasmine Gardner. All rights reserved.
Who You Are, Where You’re From, & Why:
Nobody knows what was before Nothing.
Then, Nothing.
A Big Bang, and then, Everything (You).
Energy exploded from a point, expanding at light speed (and still rapidly).
Condensing into matter, at E = mc2. Following laws of physics: entropy, motion, thermodynamics, relativity, quantum mechanics. Predetermined laws of fate?
Sub-subatomic particles formed into protons (+), neutrons (neutral), electrons (-).
Protons/neutrons, bound together by nuclear forces, formed atomic nuclei. Electromagnetic forces brought negatively-charged electrons into orbits around the positively-charged protonic nuclei.
The number of protons an atom has within its nucleus will determine its elemental/chemical properties, including how it bonds/interacts with other atoms – e.g., hydrogen has 1 proton, helium 2, oxygen 8.
At first, there were only hydrogen atoms, gravitating together in nebulas.
Centers in these clouds grew denser and hotter (motion is heat, heat is motion), the pressure ‘fused’ two hydrogen atoms, making one helium atom and releasing enormous energy, igniting a chain reaction, birthing stars which produced more and more complex atoms in their cores as more and more atoms fused together.
As nuclear fusion progresses and elements grow heavier in a star’s heart, the energy released by the process becomes trapped by gravity building up… eventually exploding trillions and trillions of atoms out into space (a ‘supernova’).
Gravity coalesces these atoms into planets which revolve around their birth star. The denser, metallic planets form near the suns, and the less-dense, airier planets form near the solar system’s edges, where the lighter elements escape to.
On certain planets (containing elements like hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, and sulfur – e.g., Earth), organic chemical reactions proceed, driven by the sun’s heat – like test tubes of organic precipitate floating in aqueous solution, rotating around a Bunsen burner – forming basic organic molecules, proteins, etc.
On Earth, basic organic blocks assembled into self-replicating strands of RNA and DNA, which lodged within simple cellular walls that would filter nutrients in from the outside world, allowing the ‘cells’ to grow, replicate their genetic material and proteins within the wall, and then divide. It’s possible that life began on Earth in this way, or perhaps it had begun on another planet and was transplanted here via a population of cells on a comet.
Single-celled organisms, through random mutations and/or sexual reproduction, diversified, some banding together to create multicellular colonies, like algae, sponges.
Sponges became less-fixed, more independent and free-floating, like jellyfish.
Jellyfish became more directional and intentional, developing a mouth at the head of a horizontal digestive tract, like a worm or a sea cucumber.
The worms and sea cucumbers kept ‘naturally selecting’ into trilobites, insects, spiders, crabs, slugs, snails, clams, squids, lampreys, fish – varying models of digestive tracts with front-brains, trying to figure out how to carry the mouth to the next meal(s).
The fish, with their strong backbones (good for swimming), diversified into sharks, rays, bony fish, lobed fish, and even one novel type of fish with leg-like fins that could crawl on land and a set of lungs that could pull oxygen out of thin air (a ‘tetrapod’).
The tetrapods became frogs, salamanders, lizards, alligators, and dinosaurs – including dinosaurs with scales, but some with feathers, and even tiny ones with warm blood and fur.
After millions of years, a comet near-instantaneously mass-extincted the giant reptiles, creating opportunities for the smaller mammals who then diversified into monotremes (i.e. egg-laying mammals; platypus), marsupials (kangaroo), rodents, rabbits, bats, hooved grazers (including those that ventured back into the waters, like manatees, sea lions, whales), fanged carnivores, lemurs, monkeys.
The mammals breast-fed their young, cared for them longer, allowing their brains to develop with increasing complexity. Social behaviors, networks, and cultures evolved. Monkeys became apes – gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, hominids.
Chimpanzees tend toward patriarchy, violence, and war. Bonobos tend toward matriarchy, love, and sex. Hominids seem in the middle. Maybe oscillating effectively between love and violence, depending on the context, led hominids to dominate.
It seems now, that the capacities for good and evil are within every human and, indeed, whether a given thought or action is to be considered ‘good’ or ‘evil’ may ultimately be a matter of perspective or ‘the eye of the beholder’. I.e., one group’s hero may be another group’s villain, etc. Ego rises as a personal hero to shield from the threat of evil.
Each individual is driven to cherish good and fight evil, as they see it. This drive sets their path through the universe, potentially a collision course with every other individual.
After oxygen, water, and food, humans crave love, which they see/feel as ‘good’. They feel pain and trauma when they are denied love, and this causes them to see/feel ‘evil’.
Individual humans, through their neuroanatomy, have certain abilities: intrapersonal, linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, and interpersonal, and maybe (probably) others, each to some degree. They also have personalities, consisting of honesty, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, each to some degree. Abilities and personalities which are developed intentionally and consistently over time lead to talents or ‘skills’.
Individual humans use these skills to create good and to destroy evil (as they see it), including by forming complex relationships and organizations with other humans and even other animals, plants, fungi, microorganisms.
These organizations have founders, leaders, managers, roles, goals, rewards, justice, in-groups, out-groups, and processes of attraction/selection/attrition, all of which create a dynamic or synergy of varying members, abilities/personalities/skills, resources, opportunities, motivations, contributions, and performances, relative to other organizations.
Early hunter-gatherer humans moved around East Africa in bands and tribes, eventually migrating to the Mediterranean, the Sahara, Arabia, India, Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia, East Asia, the Pacific Islands, Russia, North/Central/South America, (Mars).
Organizations became ‘civilizations’. Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Persia, Greece Rome, Spain, France, Britain, the Zulus, the Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Mongols, the Americans, the Soviets. Paganism, Taosim, Buddhism, Confucianism, Zen, Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Monarchy, feudalism, democracy, republicanism, capitalism, industrialism, communism, fascism. Tribal war, holy war, revolutionary war, civil war, world war, cold war, (nuclear war). Slavery, genocide, holocaust, (extinction).
Art. Poetry. Literature. Drawing. Painting. Photography. Music. Singing. Dancing. Laughing. Storytelling. Fairytales. Theater. Cinema. Games. Sports. Tournaments. Concerts. Festivals. Journeys. Adventures. Vacations. Reunions. Fashion. Cuisine. Aesthetics. Philosophy. Science. Math. Technology. Architecture. Medicine. Friends. Family. Love.
You, me, “I”, we, us. Everything. Nothing.
There is no “right answer”. There is nothing to “know”. There is no “I” that “thinks” – just a mass of energy manifesting itself in various, ever-changing and temporary ways, like waves on the surface of a deep ocean.
The SWEET LIFE might consist of:
• Sleep
• Water
• Exercise (including mental exercise, i.e., meditation)
• Eat well
• Thank (i.e., practice gratitude)
•
• Learn
• Innovate (i.e., apply what you learn)
• Feel (i.e., embrace your emotions and thoughts, even the ‘negative’ ones)
• Engage (i.e., spend time with loved ones)
Be true to yourself, respect and love others as unique equals, make friends, build communities, walk through nature, plant seeds, water.
Breathe. Live.
The full poem is below, but is also available for download.
Who You Are, Where You’re From, & Why:. © 2024 by Jasmine Gardner. All rights reserved.
Who You Are, Where You’re From, & Why:
Nobody knows what was before Nothing.
Then, Nothing.
A Big Bang, and then, Everything (You).
Energy exploded from a point, expanding at light speed (and still rapidly).
Condensing into matter, at E = mc2. Following laws of physics: entropy, motion, thermodynamics, relativity, quantum mechanics. Predetermined laws of fate?
Sub-subatomic particles formed into protons (+), neutrons (neutral), electrons (-).
Protons/neutrons, bound together by nuclear forces, formed atomic nuclei. Electromagnetic forces brought negatively-charged electrons into orbits around the positively-charged protonic nuclei.
The number of protons an atom has within its nucleus will determine its elemental/chemical properties, including how it bonds/interacts with other atoms – e.g., hydrogen has 1 proton, helium 2, oxygen 8.
At first, there were only hydrogen atoms, gravitating together in nebulas.
Centers in these clouds grew denser and hotter (motion is heat, heat is motion), the pressure ‘fused’ two hydrogen atoms, making one helium atom and releasing enormous energy, igniting a chain reaction, birthing stars which produced more and more complex atoms in their cores as more and more atoms fused together.
As nuclear fusion progresses and elements grow heavier in a star’s heart, the energy released by the process becomes trapped by gravity building up… eventually exploding trillions and trillions of atoms out into space (a ‘supernova’).
Gravity coalesces these atoms into planets which revolve around their birth star. The denser, metallic planets form near the suns, and the less-dense, airier planets form near the solar system’s edges, where the lighter elements escape to.
On certain planets (containing elements like hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, and sulfur – e.g., Earth), organic chemical reactions proceed, driven by the sun’s heat – like test tubes of organic precipitate floating in aqueous solution, rotating around a Bunsen burner – forming basic organic molecules, proteins, etc.
On Earth, basic organic blocks assembled into self-replicating strands of RNA and DNA, which lodged within simple cellular walls that would filter nutrients in from the outside world, allowing the ‘cells’ to grow, replicate their genetic material and proteins within the wall, and then divide. It’s possible that life began on Earth in this way, or perhaps it had begun on another planet and was transplanted here via a population of cells on a comet.
Single-celled organisms, through random mutations and/or sexual reproduction, diversified, some banding together to create multicellular colonies, like algae, sponges.
Sponges became less-fixed, more independent and free-floating, like jellyfish.
Jellyfish became more directional and intentional, developing a mouth at the head of a horizontal digestive tract, like a worm or a sea cucumber.
The worms and sea cucumbers kept ‘naturally selecting’ into trilobites, insects, spiders, crabs, slugs, snails, clams, squids, lampreys, fish – varying models of digestive tracts with front-brains, trying to figure out how to carry the mouth to the next meal(s).
The fish, with their strong backbones (good for swimming), diversified into sharks, rays, bony fish, lobed fish, and even one novel type of fish with leg-like fins that could crawl on land and a set of lungs that could pull oxygen out of thin air (a ‘tetrapod’).
The tetrapods became frogs, salamanders, lizards, alligators, and dinosaurs – including dinosaurs with scales, but some with feathers, and even tiny ones with warm blood and fur.
After millions of years, a comet near-instantaneously mass-extincted the giant reptiles, creating opportunities for the smaller mammals who then diversified into monotremes (i.e. egg-laying mammals; platypus), marsupials (kangaroo), rodents, rabbits, bats, hooved grazers (including those that ventured back into the waters, like manatees, sea lions, whales), fanged carnivores, lemurs, monkeys.
The mammals breast-fed their young, cared for them longer, allowing their brains to develop with increasing complexity. Social behaviors, networks, and cultures evolved. Monkeys became apes – gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, hominids.
Chimpanzees tend toward patriarchy, violence, and war. Bonobos tend toward matriarchy, love, and sex. Hominids seem in the middle. Maybe oscillating effectively between love and violence, depending on the context, led hominids to dominate.
It seems now, that the capacities for good and evil are within every human and, indeed, whether a given thought or action is to be considered ‘good’ or ‘evil’ may ultimately be a matter of perspective or ‘the eye of the beholder’. I.e., one group’s hero may be another group’s villain, etc. Ego rises as a personal hero to shield from the threat of evil.
Each individual is driven to cherish good and fight evil, as they see it. This drive sets their path through the universe, potentially a collision course with every other individual.
After oxygen, water, and food, humans crave love, which they see/feel as ‘good’. They feel pain and trauma when they are denied love, and this causes them to see/feel ‘evil’.
Individual humans, through their neuroanatomy, have certain abilities: intrapersonal, linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, and interpersonal, and maybe (probably) others, each to some degree. They also have personalities, consisting of honesty, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, each to some degree. Abilities and personalities which are developed intentionally and consistently over time lead to talents or ‘skills’.
Individual humans use these skills to create good and to destroy evil (as they see it), including by forming complex relationships and organizations with other humans and even other animals, plants, fungi, microorganisms.
These organizations have founders, leaders, managers, roles, goals, rewards, justice, in-groups, out-groups, and processes of attraction/selection/attrition, all of which create a dynamic or synergy of varying members, abilities/personalities/skills, resources, opportunities, motivations, contributions, and performances, relative to other organizations.
Early hunter-gatherer humans moved around East Africa in bands and tribes, eventually migrating to the Mediterranean, the Sahara, Arabia, India, Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia, East Asia, the Pacific Islands, Russia, North/Central/South America, (Mars).
Organizations became ‘civilizations’. Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Persia, Greece Rome, Spain, France, Britain, the Zulus, the Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Mongols, the Americans, the Soviets. Paganism, Taosim, Buddhism, Confucianism, Zen, Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Monarchy, feudalism, democracy, republicanism, capitalism, industrialism, communism, fascism. Tribal war, holy war, revolutionary war, civil war, world war, cold war, (nuclear war). Slavery, genocide, holocaust, (extinction).
Art. Poetry. Literature. Drawing. Painting. Photography. Music. Singing. Dancing. Laughing. Storytelling. Fairytales. Theater. Cinema. Games. Sports. Tournaments. Concerts. Festivals. Journeys. Adventures. Vacations. Reunions. Fashion. Cuisine. Aesthetics. Philosophy. Science. Math. Technology. Architecture. Medicine. Friends. Family. Love.
You, me, “I”, we, us. Everything. Nothing.
There is no “right answer”. There is nothing to “know”. There is no “I” that “thinks” – just a mass of energy manifesting itself in various, ever-changing and temporary ways, like waves on the surface of a deep ocean.
The SWEET LIFE might consist of:
• Sleep
• Water
• Exercise (including mental exercise, i.e., meditation)
• Eat well
• Thank (i.e., practice gratitude)
•
• Learn
• Innovate (i.e., apply what you learn)
• Feel (i.e., embrace your emotions and thoughts, even the ‘negative’ ones)
• Engage (i.e., spend time with loved ones)
Be true to yourself, respect and love others as unique equals, make friends, build communities, walk through nature, plant seeds, water.
Breathe. Live.