Introduction

Once, years ago, while sitting on the toilet, I had the realization that every atom which makes up my body actually happens to be the very same atoms that were around to make up the bodies of the dinosaurs. While this may not seem like much of an earth shattering realization for you, it was the seed that began a life long quest to understand who and what I truly am. So, having absolutely no idea where to start, and assuming that modern science must have a pretty good way of doing things, I buttoned up my lab coat and began the search for meaning by using the reductionism technique. I started with the question, "What am I?". I am a human...easy enough.

So um, what's a human? A human is a bipedal primate. Cool got it.

What's a bipedal primate? Well, a bipedal primate is a mammal, an animal that has live birth and is fed at infancy from mother's 'mammary glands', and walks on two legs. The name primate comes from the order PRIMATA and I am part of the family HOMINIDAE, which makes me an ape.

So what makes up this walking talking ape? Systems. Several systems make up the whole creature that I call 'me'. Systems such as the digestive system, the endocrine system, the circulatory and respiratory systems, nervous system, muscular and skeletal system and so on...

...and what makes up these systems? Cells that form organs, muscles, and tissues of all kinds...and what makes up these cells? Groupings of molecules...which are in turn made of atoms, which are in turn made of even smaller bits.

"Well, what are these bits?", I asked...and here's where it gets weird. Albert Einstein very famously and very succinctly stated that all matter can be denoted in terms of energy. This is no longer a disputed claim. Scientists around the globe will all agree with this statement: Matter is energy.

Holy crap. This is starting to sound a little new-agey, but I'll keep going. This energy which has combined to manifest itself as 'me' is actually a combination of approximately 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms and are as old as the earth. The smallest constituents of my body have been around since the time of the dinosaurs and before...since the creation of the universe itself.

Well, there you have it. At least I finally found something to work with. I am many extremely complex and intricately woven systems of ancient energy units which combined themselves in a very specific way. In fact, the way that the energy combined to make 'me' is so utterly specific, that I am actually 100% completely unique. There is no other system of energy in this whole wide world that is combined exactly like me.

...now we're getting somewhere.