Bare with me
The other day I ate a banana.
Bananas originated in Asia, were cultivated to create the cooking banana (plantain), then were brought to central America where in 1836 a mutation formed the dessert banana we normally eat today. This particular banana traveled thousands of miles by plane/train/boat/automobile powered by gasoline(with other additives) which comes from oil. Oil mostly comes from Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the US. It was refined and distributed throughout the world, including Central America in which my banana was grown.
I bought my banana from a climate controlled grocery store, with hundreds of locations for my convenience. This particular store is so convenient, in fact, that I live across the street from it. For my trip to the store I put on shoes made mostly of cotton and a byproduct from the oil that was refined to transport my banana to the store. I also put on a sweater that was knit using cashmere fur which comes from goats most likely grown in Asia. I have a hard time seeing, so I put on glasses, made to my specifications after years of medical and technological research, also made of oil. I crossed the street at a crosswalk when stop lights, powered by electricity harnessed partially at the Hoover Dam, indicated I was able to safely cross due to laws that drivers and pedestrians follow for their mutual safety.
When I got to the store I was greeted by a door that opened when it sensed my approach. I picked out my banana from several on display, bypassing countless other foods on my way to the register. The cashier, who used a public bus to get to work, charged me an amount of currency based on the price of the banana and it's weight, which was calculated using the imperial measurement of weight by a scale that was seated inside the laser scanner the cashier used to determine the price/weight ratio by scanning a bar code on a sticker on the banana. I could have used coins or paper bills stamped/printed by the Federal Reserve and recognized by all business in the US as currency, but I opted to use a debit card, which when scanned transfer funds electronically from my bank account.
After receiving proof of my purchase, which was printed automatically, I exited though another presence-sensing door, crossed the street again, and returned home where I used a key which is specific to the lock in my front door to enter my climate controlled, electrically lit, apartment. I sat down and ate my banana at a table made of wood from trees that grew much longer than I've been alive and were harvested by lumberjacks somewhere in the Midwest. I could go on, but the clock on my computer, kept accurate by the internet and an internal clock, indicates that it is way past my bedtime.Did I mention that modern banana plants are sterile and will not grow without human intervention?
And that was just lunch. Life is insanely amazing!
I often joke about this, but it has a lot of truth behind it: If any one of my forefathers masturbated just one extra time before they conceived their children, I would not exist.
Beyond just that, it would have only taken one forefather to have pulled out a second sooner, or even a second later, to drastically change which sperm conceived the egg. I would not exist.
If the weather was too cold on the day my parents met, maybe they would have decided to not go out, and never have met in the first place. This goes on for every damn single generation before me. The odds of being alive seem nearly impossible. Yet, here I am, alive and well in a world that has no explanation.
