A Short History of Nearly Everything

After a long time, I am reading regularly once again. This time, the book that has impressed me very much is A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

This is a book that covers all of life, literally and figuratively. In its own right, reading it is like revisiting my schoolong days! When I studied about cells, prehistory, anton von leewenhoek, john Dalton, lyell, Lavoisier, etc… about what they discovered and what they invented… but never knew them as a mix of eccentric, shy, furious, amusingly strange, funny, and absent-minded personalities…

I seldom was amazed about the world we live in, our planet, our solar system, its majesty, the thin red line between classifications of life forms… The book has such beautiful facts, descriptions, similes, and metaphors that I now look at everything around me with more curiosity and amazement.

The book kind of reveals how less we know. It kind of tells you what many masters attempted. The book tells about the duality principle of light and that all life is one but each life form is unique.

It reveals in amazing ways how things were, how they are, and sometimes, tries to predict what can and may happen. Some of these predictions are scary. It led me to question our very existence, our purpose. It’s like we are just a body for our DNAs and cells to pass on data and reproduce. There is no other purpose for life.

We learn that 99 per cent of DNA in all life forms matches one another. It’s only the remaining 1 per cent that makes us all unique living beings! Imagine!

It leaves me amazed at worlds within worlds, parallel universes, sizes of atoms, functions of mitochondria, forms of energy, how things work, the world of the very small and the world of the very big… how we need different sets of “theories” for each…

This book puts me in my rightful place. Just another slice of life…

After reading this book, I think about god and related concepts in a new light. I have a lot of “what ifs” in my atoms and cells.

All our gods, morality, ethics, and concepts are just created by us so that we think we can live or co-exist better on earth… all our theories just help us feel better. There is neither heaven nor hell. There are no sins and no penances. There is no meaning to our lives. No big purpose. There are no coincidences or miracles. Things just happen because they happen. Nobody controls anything. We just happen to be.
Now, that really gels well with Zen and Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism in its essence) sayings and teachings.

We really don’t know anything about anything. The best part is I really don’t care. I mean, there is actually no need to find answers because we actually don’t need any.

The only truth that we know (while the moon slips away from the earth’s gravity at the rate of 5 cm. per year) is that we all live.

We will live till:
The Yellowstone erupts
A meteor strikes us
The ground beneath our feet gives way
The next ice age

We can become extinct at the drop of a hat. Nothing is constant. The world of the really small and the world of the really big are both in constant flux. Nothing is permanent.

As of now, it’s a great feeling… to be alive (whatever that really means), to know nothing about anything.

This book actually emptied me while I filling me with all kinds of interesting data. Go on; read it before it’s too late!