Who Are You?

Continued from yesterday…

Who are you?

At first glance, you are a body—pretty gory on the inside, but beautiful on the outside.

Science tells us all kinds of exciting things about your body. First off, it contains about 60 percent water, unless you are really lean and fit, in which case you may only contain 50 percent water. Most of the water in your body is contained inside your cells and is essential for your cells to live.

While on the topic of cells, your body consists of about 75 trillion cells, give or take a few. Each cell contains hundreds of thousands of molecules with 6 feet of DNA in every cell containing 3 billion codes. It would require 1,000 books, each about 600 pages long, to write the codes for one of your 75 trillion cells.

If you examine one of your cells closely, you will discover that each cell contains about 100 trillion atoms, which means that atoms are incredibly small.

What’s even more surprising is that these atoms are weirdly enough 99.9 percent empty space. So, if you ever feel a bit empty inside you now know why.

All kidding aside, an atom is the basic unit of a chemical element that bonds together with other atoms by moving around in an endless frenetic pace of activity. This movement of energy develops into cells that combine with other cells to form a pattern, like your heart, bones, hair, and teeth, while at the same time making up your personality, habits, and memories.

By the way, atoms are not stationary. The atoms that make you who you are at this very moment may have earlier been part of Mars or Bruno Mars, Obama or Trump, an alien or your neighbor. What remains the same is the pattern, but the atoms move in and out in indeterminable directions and speeds.
And don’t worry if you notice some of your hair on your pillow in the morning, because every day we all lose hundreds of strands of hair.

And if you are wondering where all the dirt in your home come from, look no further than your skin, because your skin makes up 90 percent of the dust in your home. You shed about ten billion flakes of skin every day, which means that every twenty-eight days your skin is completely replaced. And every 7 to 9 years your entire body has an entirely new set of cells.

     Yet YOU continue to be YOU.

Which raises the question: Where are you in your body?

To be continued tomorrow…

Adapted from Section 3 of Awakening To I Am Love by David Youngren