The Miracle of life


The Daily Targum
By James O’Keefe
Published: 9/19/2003

Each time a man ejaculates, 500 million sperm - a number exceeding the population of Europe - eagerly swim forth. Ingrained in each one of these feisty chromosome-filled tadpoles is the incessant, instinctual, dire need to pursue and discover the pot of gold over the rainbow. Every human being was at one time a mindless, helpless, microscopic piece of bean sprout-looking matter with a mere chance of one in 500 million (all other things being equal) of fertilizing our mother's egg. But somehow in a world of six billion, each one of us has beaten these astronomical odds. We are walking and talking exceptions to a statistical impossibility; virtual pieces of art sculpted from bare nothingness; manifestations of an oppressed chance in a world where we can't even win the raffle at a little league baseball game. But not all sperm are created equal. Take a look in the mirror. You are essentially looking at an Olympian. You sprinted through dark canyons, solving mazes and using inherent superpowers to break through shells of steel. You emerged triumphantly winning the gold medal in a race of 500 million. First place receives a bright journey filled with meaning, truth and accomplishment. These special sperm grow up to become doctors, lawyers, puppeteers, and professors - perhaps curing a disease, becoming president, preventing a war or writing a thesis on kangaroo psychology or what-have-you. The other 499,999,999 (give or take a couple) vanish into the dark recesses of an unacknowledged life they never get to live.It amazes me that an entire species is composed of these Olympians - those special sperm who beat unthinkable odds and come from nothingness with no probability of ever existing to persevere over those statistical detractors. Right now take a look around you at the people who take their lives for granted. Look at them. They don't even consider how incredible their journey has been. They don't realize how much of an impact they will have on the world around them. Everybody has an impact on the world around them. If Christopher Columbus's mother didn't have sex with her husband on the exact day she did, in the exact form she did, the whole fate of the western world would be changed forever. When Columbus was a sperm he could have decided he would give up on his way to fertilizing the egg, tired of meandering through tunnels of darkness with no egg in sight. A different, less adventuring sperm could have mistakenly bumped into him and fractured Columbus's tail. The other sperm could then reach the egg, and Chris could have grown up with different interests to become a jester, instead of a skilled entrepreneur like Columbus. The entire free world would have ceased to exist as it does now. Perhaps Japan or the Swedes would have discovered us. Native Americans could have lived in tranquil serenity for another hundred years. Perhaps we would turn into a communist breeding ground. But whatever the outcome, everybody would be having sex in different ways with different people in different places. Maybe there would be no melting pot. Entirely different people would have been born. Life on earth would be irrevocably changed into a new paradigm that would have stayed the course of human history forever. Perhaps we should really accredit the discovery of the "New World" to the less adventurous sperm not getting in the way of Columbus.As you can see, this isn't just a reproduction phenomenon. It is also connected to fate. We choose a path, take it and one thing leads to another. One could eternally retrace steps not taken and roads less traveled to no end, realizing there were so many people and places not encountered. That is why when I'm talking to anyone, I realize how amazing it truly is that I am with that person, at that time, in that place, when things could have turned out completely different in infinitely many ways. A 100-year-old man has discovered so many forks in his journey, so many twists and turns since he was conceived. There will be generations of people affecting the world due to the choices he made; due to the fact his parents decided to immigrate to America. He has made an eternal ripple on the pond of time. Billions of people, just like him, operate all over earth. We meet in subways, at Starbucks or in school. If we change our desire for coffee one morning, or our decision to take the F instead of the EE, perhaps we'll be missing out on potential friendship or some type of epiphany; deciding to have a cappuccino could change our lives drastically.Now you can't live your life like this. You would probably never choose your major here at Rutgers. You would never marry anyone ever. You would obsess over every decision you have to make. But the next time you hear a mathematician belittling your chances of winning the lottery, tell him both of you were once facing odds approaching 1 in 500 million. You were both one of about 10 trillion sperm produced in a man's lifetime. Explain that you both beat the impossibly small likelihood of meeting each other in a universal realm of infinite space-time. Perhaps he'll look at you, shrug, and say, "You've got a point." Whatever you believe in, whatever your origin and whatever ideology you ascribe to, you cannot deny the miracle of life. Believe in yourself and in your ability to achieve impossible things, because you already did.

NJO: Originally appeared in Rutgers University's newspaper The Daily Targum, later posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.