Getting profound for a second.
I don’t honestly know how either set of my grandparents met. I am pretty sure my parents met because they were both involved in a summer share in (say it snooty) “the Hamptons” in summer 1969 or 1970. As every story is ever told by any parent, the woman didn’t like the man as the narrative commenced. I think that was the deal in my case. Nevertheless, they were married by 1974 and I came into the world in 1980. Nice.
In some ways, I’m sure it’s literally a miracle that both my mom and my dad opted into that house in that summer and began interacting. Either of them could have easily spent their hard-earned late-1960s money on something else. Would I still be here? Probably not. And if I was, it would have been via different people, so I wouldn’t be this person. Maybe I’d only have about 100 followers on Medium, ya know?
The “Ancestral Mathematics” stuff — Sahil Bloom hits it hard often — can feel a little much sometimes, but it’s true. In many ways, your sheer existence is a miracle. Hundreds (read: thousands) of different people had to meet, fall in love or at the very least decide to have a child together, have that child, and then set that child into the world to meet the offspring of other people, who had to go through their own paths. Finally, somewhere along the line, your mom and your dad met and produced a child. It’s kinda nuts to consider it.
I won’t even bring infertility deeply into this one, although that’s an increasing factor too — later-in-life marriages, “Spermageddon,” the whole lot. In some ways, a kid being born in 2024 is a double miracle. He or she (“they”) had to be the result of all the ancestral mathematics above, plus have a sperm get clear to an egg at a time when “maximum viable fertility” seems to be dropping.
Whenever you get sad or down on yourself, I know it can be hard to come out of said rut — but remember, in many ways, you’re a damn miracle just by walking around.
