You don’t really have it all that bad…

I'm reading a book now titled:  "Pronoia" - "Is The Antidote For Paranoia.  How The Whole World Is Conspiring To Shower You With Blessings."

Below I've included the complete text of one of the early chapters.  It's fairly long but may be something you find yourself reading more than once.

If you don't have time to read it all right now, read the first and last paragraphs.  You'll get the idea...

Thousands of things go right for you every
day, beginning the moment you wake up.
Through some magic you don't fully understand,
you're still breathing and your heart is
beating, even though you've been unconscious
for many hours.  The air is a mix of gases
that's just right for your body's needs, as
it was before you fell asleep.

You can see!  The light of many colors floods
into your eyes, registered buying nerves that
a God or evolution or some process of millions
of years to perfect.  The interesting gift of
these vivid hues comes to you courtesy of an
unimaginably immense globe of fire, the sun,
which can continually detonates nuclear
reactions in order to convert its body into
light and heat and energy for your personal use.

Did you know that the sun is located at the
precise distance from you to be of perfect service?
If it were any closer, you'd fry, and if were any further
away, you'd freeze.  Here's another one of the sun's
benedictions: It appears to rise over the eastern
horizon right on schedule every day, as it has
since long before you were born.

Do you remember when you are born, by the way?  It
was a difficult miracle that involve many people who
worked hard on your behalf.  No less correct miraculous
is the fact you have continued to grow since then,
with millions of new cells being born inside you
to replace the old ones that die.  All of this
happens whether or not you ever think about it.

On this day like almost every other, you have awoken
inside a temperature-controlled shelter.
You have a home!  Your bed and pillow are soft and
you're covered by comfortable blankets.  Electricity
is turned on, as usual.  Somehow, in ways your
barely aware of, a massive power plant at an
unknown distance from your home is transforming
fuel into currents of electricity that reach you
through mostly hidden conduits in the exact amounts
you need, and all you have to do to control the flow
is flick small switches with your fingers.

You can walk!  Your legs work wonderfully well.  Your
heart circulates your blood all the way down to
replenish the energy of the muscles in your feet and
calves and thighs, and when the blood is depleted it
finds its way back to your heart to be refreshed.
This blessing recurs over and over again without
stopping every hour of your life.

Your home is perhaps not a million-dollar palace, but it's
sturdy and gigantic compared to the typical domicile
in every culture that has preceded you.  The floors
aren't crumbling, and the walls and ceilings are holding
up well, too.  Doors open and close without trouble,
and so do the windows.  What skillful geniuses built
this sanctuary for you?  How and where did they learn
their craft?

In your bathroom, the toilet is functioning perfectly,
as are several other convenient devices.  You have at
your disposal soaps, creams, razors, clippers, tooth
cleaning accessories: a host of products
that enhance your hygiene and appearance.  You trust
that unidentified scientists somewhere tested them
to be sure their safe for you to use.

Amazingly, the water you need so much of comes out
of your faucets in an even flow with the volume you
want, in either cold or hot as you desire. It's
pure and clean; you're confident no parasites
are lurking in it.  There is someone somewhere
making sure these booms will continue to arrive
for you without interruption for as long as you
require them.

Look at your hands.  They're astoounding creations
that allow you to carry out hundreds of tasks
with great force and intricate grace.  They
relish the pleasure and privilege of touching
thousands of different textures, and they're
beautiful.

In your closet are many clothes you like to wear.
Who gathered the materials to make the fabrics they're
made of?  Who imbued them with colors, and how
did they do it?  Who sewed them for you?

In your kitchen, appetizing food in secure packaging
is waiting for you. Many people you've never met worked
hard to grow it, process it, and get it to the store
where you bought it.  The bounty of tasty nourishment
you get to choose from is unprecedented in the history
of the world.

Your many appliances are working flawlessly.  Despite
the fact that they feed on electricity, which could kill
you instantly if you touched it directly, you feel no
fear that you're in danger.  Why?  Your faith in the
people who invented, designed, and produced these
machines is impressive.

It's as if there's a benevolent conspiracy of unknown
people that is tirelessly creating hundreds of
useful things you like and need.

There's more.  Gravity is working exactly the way it
always has, neither pulling on you with too much or
too little force.  How did that marvle ever come to be?
By some prodigious, long running accident?  It doesn't
really matter, since it will continue to function with
astounding efficiency whether or not you understand it.

Meanwhile, a trillion another elements of nature's
miraculous design are expressing themselves perfectly.
Plans are growing, rivers are flowing, clouds are
drifting, winds are blowing, animals are reproducing.
The weather is an interesting blend of elements you've
never before experienced in quite this combination.
Though you may take it for granted, you relish the
ever shifting sensations of light and temperature
as they interact with your body.

There's more.  You can smell odors and hear sounds and
taste tastes, many of which are quite pleasing.  You
can think!  You're in possession of the extraordinary
gift of self awareness.  You can feel feelings!  Do
you realize how improbably stupendous it is for you
to have been blessed with that mysterious capacity?
And get this: you can visualize an inexhaustible
array of images some of which represent things that
don't actually exist.  How did you acquire this
magical talent?

By some improbable series of coincidences or long-term
divine plan, language has come into existence.  Millions
of people have collaborated for many centuries to
cultivate a system for communication that you understand
well.  Speaking and reading give you great pleasure and
a tremendous sense of power.

Do you want to go someplace but at a distance?  You
have a number of choices about what machines to use
in order to get there.  Whatever you decide - car, plane,
bus, train, subway, ship, helicopter or bike- you have
confidence that it will work efficiently.  Multitudes
of people who are now dead devoted themselves to perfecting
these modes of travel.  Multitudes who are still alive devote
themselves to ensuring that these benefits keep serving you.

Maybe you're one of the hundreds of millions of people in
the world who has the extraordinary privilege of
owning a car.  It's a brilliant invention made by highly
competent workers.  Other skilled laborers put in long
hours to extract oil from the ground or sea and turn it
into fuel so you can use your car conveniently.  The
roads are drivable.  Who paved them for you?  The bridges
you cross are potent feats of engineering. Do you realize how
hard it was to fabricate them from scratch?

You're aware that in the future shrinking oil reserves
and global warming may impose limitations on your ability
to use cars and planes and other machines to travel.
But you also know that many smart and idealistic people
are diligently striving to develop alternative fuels
and protect the environment.  And compared to how slow
societies have been to understand their macrocosmic
problems in the past, your culture is moving with
unprecedented speed to recognize and respond to the
crises spawned by its technologies.

As you travel, you might listen to music.  Maybe
you've got an MP3 player, a fantastic invention
that has dramatically enhanced your ability to hear a
stunning variety of engaging sounds at a low cost.
Or maybe you have a radio.  Through a process you can't
fathom, music and voices that originate at a distance
from you have been converted into invisible waves that
bounce off the ionosphere and down into your little
machine, where they are transformed back into music
and voices for you to enjoy.

Let's say it's 9:30 AM.  You've been awake for 2 hours,
and a hundred things already gone right for you.  If three
of those hundred things had not gone right- your toaster
was broken, the hot water wasn't hot enough, there
was a stain on the pants you want to wear- you might
feel that today the universe is against you, that your
luck is bad, that nothing's going right.  And yet the
fact is that the vast majority of everything is working
with breathtaking efficiency and consistency.  You
would clearly be deluded to imagine that life is
primarily an ordeal.

***

You can get more info about this book on Amazon.

CLICK "Pronoia"

2 Comments

  • Deb says:

    Great Great Great!!!!! Love that the author takes a look step by step at many of the things that we all take so for granted EVERY day!!!
    It just amps up the level of appreciation that I have for everything that is right in front of me and what I come in contact with minute to minute! Thanks for sharing!

  • Bobby G says:

    Thanks for reminding me how much we are blessed!

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