1%

There are lots of things that are stupid about being human, but one thing that's great is what happens when our big ol' brains and our big ol' hearts are simultaneously thrilled. When I saw this breakthrough discovery about how matter beat out antimatter right after the Big Bang, I got that warm fuzzy feeling both in my brain and in my gut. For the former, let's reflect once more on how fucking cool it is that we've even devised a way to test this. There are people in the world that 1) observed that matter and antimatter particles always destroy each on contact, 2) wondered how matter has managed to be prevalent if that's the case, 3) figured out that they needed a particle accelerator to test this, and 4) built a particle accelerator. Seriously fellow humans: when we're good, we're great.

That's on the brain level. On the gut level, there are so many narratives that reflect this dynamic, in which the solid, honest and brave characters win out over the evil, deceptive and (at heart at least) cowardly characters, even if it's just at the same 1% rate that matter survives clashes with antimatter. That 1% made our entire universe, guys, and that 1% also made Luke Skywalker.

In fact, is it fair to say that the human race's central narrative is good wins over evil, even if it's only by a margin of 1%? I mean, minus Ragnarok, obviously.

We're kind of suspended between robot and animal, with an advanced mechanical intelligence in the first instance and a deeply instinctual emotional core in the second (and don't you even start with me about whether or not animals are emotional, you species-ist jerkface). When there's say, a giant oil spill, it sucks, because you can feel our failure intellectually and emotionally. But when we make a discovery about how our universe was conceived, and that discovery weirdly echoes the mythologies we already surround ourselves with, I mean...well done, humanity! Sometimes, the stories that we tell are beautiful and poignant in exactly the same way as the stories telling us.

PS. If you think that sentiment is corny, you have no place reading this blog. Get OUT!