Last weekend I was in Granada visiting a friend and while on a walk I was telling her how lucky we are just to be able to take a hot shower every day. It’s something I think about often because I know it’s a modern luxury.
As I sat down to write this, I called my 93 year old grandmother to confirm. She said her and her three sisters would use the same bucket of water to take sponge baths one after another. Then the boys would use the same bucket to clean themselves. And then afterwards came all the laundry, in the same bucket of course.
We live in a complicated and complex ecosystem which is why things feel weird. In the daily news cycle, it seems like things are getting worse, but if you look at the big picture, our standard of living has improved a lot.
The big picture — that’s the theme of this week’s Sunday Serendipity…
1.
On Monday after I arrived back from Granada, I saw an essay by
where he describes how we are different from all other humans in history:“A Snickers and a power shower would blow Henry VIII’s mind.
This morning, I woke up in a comfortable bed, knowing there would be no deadly predators or pests to eat or infect me. With cheap soaps and pristine, hot water, I became cleaner in five minutes than was possible for any human in the past.
With a flick of a switch, I conjured hot coffee into existence with a taste and quality that could not have been summoned by any empire or fleet previously. In a safe car that could rapidly whisk me to another country in a few hours—by driving onto a train that literally travels under the ocean—I typed a few keystrokes on a magic device that allowed me to listen to virtually any music recorded, anywhere on the planet, in the last century or so. And the entire time, I never feared violence, starvation, disease, or death.
When we compare ourselves to humans past, we, not them, are the weird ones.
Funny timing since I just had the hot shower conversation the day before.
He’s right. We get habituated so quick and forget how good we have it. When I called my grandma to ask about the hot showers, she said she can’t remember the last time she thought about the bucket and the sponge baths. Hot running water is so ordinary that even people who didn’t have it when they were born forget it’s still relatively new.
And because we get habituated so quick, we forget how new the internet is in the grand scheme of things. If we compress the history of the earth into one year, humans have only been around for seconds. This confirms why things feel weird, it’s all new!
“More than half of the world’s population is under the age of 30, meaning that the majority of humans alive today have only lived in those 11 seconds—an era that is, without question, the weirdest period in human history.”
In a globalized and connected world, we can always find bad things happening at any given moment. But the things we get angry and upset about are not unique to us.
The sadness we witness on the news has happened to many civilizations throughout different points in the history of humankind.
Relatively speaking, this is a safe and luxurious time to be alive.
2.
The second big picture moment was this conversation with
and Brian Eno:In the episode, they discuss an idea from Stewart Brand, that if everyone could see the planet from outer space, it would change the consciousness of humankind:
“Stewart sort of gave birth to this idea, that if we could show the world from the outside, if we realized what an amazing, extraordinary, unique gift this tiny little planet teeming with life swimming around in a dead universe as far as we know. We still don’t know that there’s any other life which is phenomenal if you think about it. We might be the only life in the universe.
I think it’s the most sobering thought. I think that should be shouted from the rooftops every day. That’s my version of seeing the whole earth from space is getting people to understand that we might be the only life.
Those things make me constantly think and constantly be sort of grateful for the fact that I’m alive.”
In 1966 after an LSD trip, Brand became obsessed with the idea of seeing a picture of the whole Earth:
“A photograph would do it — a color photograph from space of the earth.
There it would be for all to see, the earth complete, tiny, adrift, and no one would ever perceive things the same way.”
A couple of years later, his dream came true. In 1968, we finally got to see our planet in all her glory. “Here we came all this way to the Moon, and yet the most significant thing we’re seeing is our own home planet, the Earth.” said astronaut Bill Anders
Brian Eno and Steward Brand are both co-founders of the Long Now Foundation.
Their motto is that “Now” is never just a moment.
The Long Now means recognizing that the precise moment you’re in grows out of the past and is a seed for the future. The longer your sense of Now, the more past and future it includes. We tend to worry a lot about what the near future will bring, but we forget how much progress we’ve made in the span of just a few decades.
So much is completely out of our control. Like when and where you were born and whether or not you have the privilege of taking a warm shower every day.
This is why I’m so obsessed with the idea of Serendipity.
Just the fact that you and I are here on this pale blue dot floating around in outer space is such an improbable and amazing thing. During your next shower, I hope you take moment to reflect on how lucky you are to be living right now.
See you next week,
<3 B
P.S. - If you want to zoom out and reflect on the big picutre, I’m hosting a cycling and writing retreat in Spain next Spring. If this is something you’d be interested in, fill out this form and I’ll be in touch with more info. 🚴🏼
¡Que cool este volumen!
Pensar que estamos flotando en este "globo azul" me impresiona.
Es fascinante como la vida puede sorprenderte en diferentes situaciones de forma casual. Y me quedo con esto porque es una de las cosas que le dan chispa y sentido a mi vida. Salir a explorar el mundo siempre te va a sorprender en algún punto.
¡Vivan las duchas conscientes!
<3