Why is it everyone wants their children to be normal, but no one wants them to be average?
Roy h. williams
Think you’re normal? Think again.
A new study suggests there are around 700 quintillion planets in the universe, but only one like Earth.
1 in 700,000,000,000,000,000,000
Astrophysicist Erik Zackrisson from Uppsala University in Sweden arrived at this wondrous, even terrifying figure—a 7 followed by 20 zeros—with the aid of a computer model that simulated the universe’s development out of its infancy, upward and onward through its terrible twos and through its toddler-Dora-Diego phase, and into the early adolescence where you and I sit… or stand… or occasionally lean.
Zackrisson’s model combined information about known exoplanets with our understanding of the early universe and the laws of physics to recreate the theoretical origins of… everything… including us… There are currently over 7.3 billion of us on Earth, and only one of them is you.
1 in 7,300,000,000
If that makes you feel extremely small and insignificant, don’t worry – the odds of you existing at all are even tinier.
But that’s just the beginning of this miraculous, galactic confluence of events that led to you being here reading this…
The odds of your dad meeting your mom—about 1 in 20,000—then that has to be multiplied by the odds of them talking, dating, and then staying together long enough to have kids.
1 in 20,000
Things get even deeper with the probability of your mother’s egg and your father’s sperm having all the right DNA to make you you—and not a slightly different person, like your sibling—making you, well, 1 in 400 quintillion… approximately.
1 in 400,000,000,000,000,000,000
And things get a whole lot more complicated if you consider that those odds need to happen every generation all the way back until you reach… the actual beginning of your timeline… and mine… ours. The probability of that happening comes out at about 1 in 10 to 2,685,000, or 10 followed by 2,685,000 zeros.
1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0—sheesh… you get the idea…
Think you’re normal? Think again.
You’re a miracle, and everything that makes you you and not her or him or a cactus or even nothing but stardust is a gift so profound it hurts my weird little brain to think how few of us are presently, willfully, joyfully taking advantage of this great galactic gift.
This strange, wonderful, weird miraculousness is not only most welcome in your neighborhoods… but absolutely necessary.
The goal of life is to take everything that made you weird as a kid and get people to pay you money for it as an adult.
David Freeman
There’s never been a more important in the history of history for you to be you. We’ve never needed you and your special blend of weirdness more.
You’ve already beaten—literally—miraculous odds by being here… why not take the next brave step?
Because we’re all weird, and we’re all welcome.
It’s science.
What you are is good enough. Be it openly.
carl rogers
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