Anxiety in A minor
It’s 1:42 am
And I’m up
Asking Google
About the nature of reality
They say the Universe is 13.8 billion years old
And 93 Billion light years wide
I look up a light year
Which they say is 6 trillion miles long
But I don’t understand this
I have no context for numbers this big
Earth is 6 billion years old
But humans have only had hands for 2.6 million years
And that seems like a relatively short amount of time
I think
Comparatively
But also that’s an unfathomable amount of time
To spend evolving all this DNA
Just so I can have hands
And no good ideas for what to do with them
Speaking of DNA
There are 204 billion atoms in the human genome
But I don’t understand DNA
Or atoms
The internet says there’s
7 billion billion billion
Atoms in the human body
And 100 billion neurons
Forming 100 trillion neural connections
In the human mind
It’s 2:05 am
I scratch my head because I can’t grasp these numbers
But I’m worried I haven’t made enough neural connections
To make it through the Alzheimer’s stage in life
It runs in my family
Also Dementia
And Parkinson’s
But I don’t understand these things either
Maybe they’re in my DNA
They say DNA is only 3 meters long
6 if you stretch it out
I can picture that, I think
But I probably imagine it
Out of proportion
It’s 2:41 am
And I’m not sure what I should be doing
I drink some hot water from the electric kettle
And some tequila Pancho gave me for Christmas
I read that most of the atoms in your body are hydrogen
2/3 they say
And that hydrogen has an unstable relationship to its electrons
Because it only has 1
And the valence shell likes to be full
Which takes 2
So the atom drops the electron
Or picks 1 up
Changing its charge
To either positive or negative
Making the atom an ion
And most bodily fluids are made of ions
Because Hydrogen is so fickle
Or flirty
Or unstable, I guess
It’s why we have the pH scale
Negative ions means it’s acidic
It’s 3:03 am and I drink some more tequila
It’s probably full of negative ions
Because it’s acidic
Or maybe I don’t understand ions
But it hurts my teeth either way
I switch back to the Universe
I capitalize “Universe” now because I don’t believe in God
But that seems silly because wouldn’t that be idolizing something else
I shake my head and agree with myself
Then I read that as much as 90 percent of the Universe
Is made of dark matter
And dark energy
But it doesn’t react to electromagnetic radiation
Which means it doesn’t react to light
So no one has ever seen it
And it might not even exist
And I think about the Universe being 90 percent
Of something that no one has ever seen
And my body is made out of how many billions
And billions and billions
Of atoms
Mostly Hydrogen
That I’ve never seen
And now its 3:19 am
And I’m panicking
Because the infinitesimally small
And the infinitely large
Are crashing in my head
And I can’t keep track of which one
I’m thinking about
And it makes my heart race
And I picture red blood vessels
Racing through my tubes
Made of tiny little atoms
Bodily fluids so they’re probably ions
And then I feel the space outside of me
The 93 billion light years
Full of dark matter
And how far that is
Through the wall
Through every wall
And the floor
And the ceiling
Every direction
And then I remember a thing I read
About Dissociative Identity Disorder
And how each personality has its own set of physiological eccentricities
Different allergies
Different eyeglass prescriptions
Different dominant handedness
And I think about my hands
Which I’m sitting on
Because I’m not sure what to do with them
After so many years of evolution
Which makes me feel guilty
So I sip the tequila
With the negative ions
And hope I’m not just a personality
And wonder
How the body changes eyesight
And how precarious
And misunderstood
And insecure reality is
And now its 3:25
And I’m rubbing my feet together
And clenching my teeth
And avoiding my problems
Because I have no money
And I wonder if all this stuff is not for me
Because I panic
But as a human I have a curiosity
Which leads me to ask questions
But we don’t have time for the Unknown
Space exploration is for rich people
Billionaires
They call it a Mars colony for a reason
We make coffee
And shake martinis
And now it’s 3:51 am
And I can’t sleep
And I’m going to die
And I’ll never know
What I could be doing
With these hands