Have you ever thought about the odds of your existence?
Indeed, getting here was no small feat.
If a different sperm had entered my mom’s egg, or if my mom got pregnant a day earlier or later, I, no doubt, wouldn’t be me. If my mom hadn’t met my dad while working in a grocery store during High School, there would have been no Davey Wavey. If my grandfather hadn’t whistled at my soon-to-be grandmother while working in a mill in Rhode Island, my dad wouldn’t have been born – and thus, neither would have I.
It took the entire world’s history to unfold exactly as it did in order for you to enter the world. The wars, the dates, the famines, the affairs, the exoduses, family picnics and chance encounters had to unfold exactly as they did so that you could grace us with your presence.
If World War II lasted 1349 days instead of 1348, many of us wouldn’t be here. If our great-great-great grandparents were content in their homeland, or left a day earlier or later, another large chunk of us would disappear. If your parents went out to dinner instead of having sex, you would never have been born.
Basically, the odds of you being born are incalculably slim. But there you are, in all your glory.
So the next time someone in life says, “You can’t do it,” let that knowing, wise smile slide across your face. You’re pretty good at beating the odds.
Kinda makes you want to play the lottery, eh?
PS Maybe you beat the odds for a reason? Maybe the universe needed a soul that glows as bright as you?
July 25, 2008 at 6:00 am
So true Davey Wavey – and doesn’t help to know that there was no other way for it to all pan out. Every ‘evil’ or ‘good’ that has occurred in the history of the universe was bound to happen, and wouldn’t have happened any other way…and this is why we’re here; now.
So lets take Today by the arm and see where he takes us!
Love JbX
July 25, 2008 at 6:25 am
what you say sounds like you believe in destiny and that your destiny i already written in stone. i really don’t believe that this is the case. i think you make of your life what you will.
things happen in this world for a reason, because someone did something, or didn’t do something. or it could be that it happens regarless of what people do.
and since it has already happened that particular way some people think that there would’ve been no other way. to them the ‘what ifs’ become just a dream, an idea.
i don’t think what has happened was ‘bound’ to happen. i mean, if a different course of history were to have taken place, i’m sure people in that time would’ve said the same thing that THEY were bound to happen.
what has happened in the past is continually making us change the way we think and act, and if something had gone differently, the course of the future would have changed highly. i believe the future is a road with uncountable divergences. with each tiny path having countless divisions and crisscrosses of millions of ways.
a single simple act can change the path you travel.
no offence, but i believe that believing in a destiny that is already written is a very narrow minded idea.
July 25, 2008 at 7:34 am
I agree with you 100% that we are in control of our lives and that the events of the past effect our decisions on the paths that we take in the future. Destiny or predestined views are just not realistic/logical.
July 25, 2008 at 11:07 am
danny and PT…agree with you BOTH! Peace!
July 29, 2008 at 2:06 pm
My ideas gravitate more towards “we all have a path to walk with lessons to learn, and we’ll walk it either way”. I do believe in infinite choice, infinite outcomes, but that the events we encounter in our lives are ultimatly crafted towards giving us maximum opportunity to learn and reach our full potential.
You can be anyone or anything you want – and if you are then you’re meant to be.
July 25, 2008 at 6:00 am
Oops – edit: “doesn’t it help to know”
July 25, 2008 at 6:19 am
…thinking about being an accident…
July 25, 2008 at 6:27 am
How can you thought things like that??? hihi
Anyway It’s so true.
July 25, 2008 at 6:34 am
I have thought about that too Davey….if my parents had not meant would I be here today.
As for the lottery thing that has not worked out the way I would like it too and that is winning big…not small like I usuallly do. And then I have to wonder if there is some purpose for me not to win big..???
And I agree with DannyH.
July 25, 2008 at 7:09 am
I always think about that. Exept I just I’m an accident. Trillions of things were against me and now I’m here pissing on destiny’s deam somehow. I can’t be doing what destiny wants me do because I’m basically doing nothing. Take that universe!
July 25, 2008 at 9:10 am
Well just to add to the odds of existence topic – I don’t know if any of you read a comment I made on Davey’s ‘contact me’ section (alas it was deleted when he changed the layout of the site) but it was about time travel (just see where this goes) and the nature of our existence and was a BBC documentary so from a rather reliable source.
Anyway to cut a lot of science nonsense it is now said that traveling backwards in time is a physical impracticality because the energy required is on a scale larger than the galaxy. However with computers always becoming faster and faster and memory larger and larger it is no stretch of the imagination to see a computer capable of creating the past virtually with such quality it is indistinguishable from reality.
As we are talking about an infinite future there will at some point be a computer capable of millions, billions of such simulations allowing anyone to travel back in time virtually.
So what are the odds that we are the true original and not one of the billions of simulations?
Very matrixxy, but quite a logical argument thats hard to dispute (damn the BBC).
July 25, 2008 at 9:13 am
Beating the odds….yah, that’s a cool way of looking at it. I guess in this case, the house always wins, but it’s great because whent he house wins, we all win, big time.
I can’t imagine the universe without Davey Wavey, myself, the blog buddies…yep, it’s extremely cool.
Ciao – J
July 25, 2008 at 9:53 am
Davey and Blog Buddies-
I also wonder if abortion was legal, would I be here?
I am adopted and sometimes wonder if I was adopted by another family what would my life be like.
I was born before the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v Wade.
Also as a gay man, even though I am adopted, I am pro choice, I will NEVER be put into that position of facing that decision. I don’t understand how a man in a suit can tell a woman what she can or can’t do with HER body!
July 25, 2008 at 9:53 am
you have too much time on your hands
July 25, 2008 at 10:45 am
And thats why its perfect!
July 25, 2008 at 11:00 am
As someone once said, “You won one race in your life and it was the one that gave you existence.”
July 25, 2008 at 11:52 am
Hey it’s so true man =)
Like to read your blog cause a lot of funny thing over here and I can improve my grammar while reading your post. haha~ Here is Rex who currently stay in Singapore. =)
Good day!
July 25, 2008 at 12:45 pm
As Og Mandino so eloquently wrote in his book, you are “The Greatest Miracle in the World.” As are we all.
July 25, 2008 at 1:07 pm
We’re all here for a reason – there are no accidents – so grab life with both hands.
A friend’s son said to his dad when he was very small “God sent me to you”. Kinda made them very humble
July 26, 2008 at 5:34 am
Nick..thanks man…
God is in play for all of us.
July 25, 2008 at 2:05 pm
And this is the reason why I am a pretty strong advocate of knowing who you are, where you come from, what your cultural heritage is. People are too quick to throw their culture history away for something new, and more exciting – kind of like your new ipod. While it may be newer and cooler, it may not be the best (and it may be filled with kinks the company hasn’t worked out yet..)
July 25, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Truely, there are no accidents, no predestinations. In logic and though experience, I know that there is only the cause and effect. We can only calculate the possibilities of what might happen, not the final outcome.
Yes, I am here, just as everyone else is in the same boat. But at what cost? What if a better person could have been born of one’s mother. What if I wasn’t circumcised by that bastard doctor? What if I didn’t get into an collision that resulted in my sister having to take care of me and there by resulting in her evented death and there by causing a break up with my boyfriend who was supposed to pick her up and didn’t, there by him going to Iraq and getting himself killed to prove to me that he is responsible with other peoples lives and could be trusted.
You see, in all our glory of being here there is the outcost. The key is to accept all the terrible things that have occurred along with what has brought joy to one’s life. To deny the other half of the vision is to be an incomplete person, to live a lie.
Be truthful to one’s self and you will find out what is truly sacred in life.
There is nothing in this world that isn’t sacred.
July 25, 2008 at 4:52 pm
a rather confusing post…sorry if I misunderstood it :$
July 25, 2008 at 8:32 pm
very well said..
goes back to the point i was trying to make, it’s a quite simple minded view to think that everything that happened would have happened anyway…
underestimates a lot.. including the lives of countless people.
learn from your and others’ mistakes and shape your own future.
July 25, 2008 at 4:03 pm
There is the paradox. Where does free will enter into God’s plan (if one believes in that theology)? Had I zigged, when in fact I zagged, what would have happened? Had Washington remained a loyalist and fought for George III, would there be a United States? Could it really hinge on one man’s decision?
Do Jehova, Odin, the Universe, Vishnu, Zeus care what decisions I make while they do it all again on Zebulon 5 in a neighboring galaxy where a little fishlike creature is crawling out of the sea as I write this thread and scratch my ass?
“And the planets of the universe go their way.
Not astounded by the sun or the moon, or by the day.”
July 26, 2008 at 5:37 am
very good Jimmy
thanks for the reply.
July 25, 2008 at 4:57 pm
It’s really fascinating when you think of it that way. The events of the past led to our existence. So we must honor our existence in every way we can.
July 25, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Dave’s point of view stays true to his spirit of optimism. I’ll find an excellent use for this sometime.
But as far as discussions of existence and the truth in freedom and destiny, I find myself completely torn and undecided…. I’ll just wait for more posts, keep an open mind, and read a bit on my own in the meanwhile.
July 25, 2008 at 7:31 pm
the problem is you are thinking linear…
In your example if the parents went to dinner instead of having sex that does not equate to you not being born
It equates to you not being born to them–but there are plenty of places for a new soul to emerge on this earth.
July 26, 2008 at 1:39 pm
This is such a cool way to look at existence!
July 26, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Beating the odds….? or just coincidence?