The origins

The monumental tasks of developing a society. The monumental task of developing life. Microbial, multicellular and complex over time. These are things already behind us. We have the privilege of being born in the best era ever so far. Virtually literally everything at our fingertips. We are lucky.

First, there had to have been a universe. You’re better off not asking „why“ or „how“, spare yourself. Just kidding. But really, who knows? That’s a thing to think about over a smoke session. Just imagine…a big bang. A really big bang. That’s the best model we currently have.

And we have a universe now. It’s kind of hot in here. And it’s expanding.

A new universe. The only one?

Our young and hot universe is cooling off the first few million years of its existence. The distances are shorter as it’s only starting to expand. So if any civilization exists at this point, they’d generally have an easier time colonizing the galaxy. And they might’ve since millions of years seem to be enough for life to develop. The universe also being hotter could mean all kinds of „odd“ life to develop. But let’s zoom in to the milky way galaxy, and zoom in even closer on our newly forming solar system. Our planet hit the jackpot in the terms of distance from its sun. This is called the goldilocks zone. Just another variable to think about. Then a small planet hit the earth. And thank god it did, as this event formed our moon.

The chaos variable

The hellish landscape our planet is at this point is worse than any biblical Armageddon. Tectonic plate activity begins. And the planet stabilizes, slowly, but surely.

No life, Peaceful planet

At this point, there is no life around. But there’s one thing that makes it possible and that’s liquid water.

First life signs

Now the magic happens. No complex organisms yet though. But simple microbial life is around.

Fast forward a bit and we already have complex life around us. It’s basically nature’s experimental phase. Life was adapting to its environment. But the learning curve and evolution aren’t fixed. Nature itself went through trial and error. This period was home to some of the most bizarre organisms you can imagine. There are limits to evolution and nature itself though as it seems since we haven’t found any laser-eyed flying unicorn fossils. Still, life would blow your mind at this point.

• Anomalocaris - the first predator!

The more known history

The giant lizards period. Dinosaurs. Some crazy life out there. More oxygen in the atmosphere means everything got bigger. Much, much bigger.

Then a meteor hit, destabilizing the climate to which such giant lizards couldn’t adapt. Neither could giant whale hunting sharks. So the megalodon definitely went extinct (what, why are you disappointed about that, you freak?!). Life is a cycle. Food sources for the predators also had to have a food source. One cannot go without the other. Life had to adapt yet again.

(If you want to know who nature’s top apex predator of all time was and IS, it’s the alligator. It’s basically the perfect killing machine as it’s been the same with only minor evolutionary changes for over 150 million years!)

Our story kind of begins here

Whilst every living thing on this planet has a common microbial ancestor(this is also disputed, however, as some evidence suggests life could’ve happened twice! The squid shares nothing in common with anything living on this planet!), the first mammals to start the line that ends with us, have been „popping up“ at this point.

I’m sure you’re already picturing monkeys jumping around in some trees and whatnot. And yep, that’s how it was. Until Some of our ancestors have left the comfort and relative safety of trees and landed on the ground for unknown reasons. It is speculated, that they were either forced by their own for being weak or perhaps an unknown threat came to play. Either way, they have quickly found themselves in a world where virtually everything stood in their way and chance of survival. Very little in favor.

However, nature decided to pull something that hasn’t yet been seen. An investment. Abstract thinking. And language. But that came later.

At first, we had to become good in abstract thinking. Why? Well, we had to take in a lot of information at once to survive. Such as, where predators are, where food is, what food is safe etc. Abstract thinking is not to be taken for granted.

There were of course more humanoids around, before us but around us as well. There’s evidence that they all had some sort of culture. Abstract thinking. Art. Burying dead. But we had a secret superweapon that would eventually conquer the world. Language.

At some point, we breed together, and many people nowadays have some Neanderthal DNA as a result. But at some point, all our cousins died out. A combination of minor genocides and a lack of language. Language is the single most important thing we have. No other species can communicate as effectively as we can. But we take it for granted too much. It was a risk. Our brains are the most complex thing out there, and rest assured, it is a huge energy consumer. (We drove the mammoth extinct!). We need a lot of calories to work properly. Our brains take most of it. But it worked out.

And that’s as far as ancient history goes. The anatomically modern human went on to conquer the world. Civilization was formed. All this had to happen.

Think of your own family tree. Your mother and father had to meet and conceive you. Five million sperm had to fight a race and then there you were, victorious. The same with your grandparents etc.

It’s insane, statistically more than unlikely, and kind of mind-blowing we are alive right now. All of this had to happen first.

How precious.