Acuity
Let's assume that the earth is the size of a typical classroom globe. The moon which is about one quarter the size of the earth is how far away? What's your best guess? While you are thinking, consider in this little scale comparison that the ISS would be floating 3/8" off the surface of the globe. Ok. So, the moon would be about thirty feet away. You all got that one. Right? OK. Now how far would it be to Mars?
Researchers have been studying the way elephants communicate and have found that there is a special stance that these massive animals assume when they are listening. There are nerve endings sensitive enough in their front feet and trunk that they can hear sound waves passing through the ground up to twenty miles away and actually communicate over distances of around ten miles. When they "talk" subsonically through the ground they have muscles in their ears which can constrict to increase the sensitivity to vibrations through their bones. Their bodies can accurately triangulate location miles away.
And then there are blue whales which are capable of communicating in good conditions over a thousand miles of ocean. "Hey guys, the krill over here is on special. Swing by." These guys don't need the internet. They are just paying very close attention to their own species in a completely organic way. Millennia of evolution has gifted creatures with unfathomable sensitivity. So what about us? Did we miss out on something? I can't hear through my feet.
No. But I can and most of you can triangulate with our ears to within one degree of accuracy. We can differentiate as many as ten million colors according to some scientists. While we focus on traveling to Mars and speeding up the next chip in the little screens in our pockets we lose track of our innate superpowers. My kids can ski though trees at frightening speed, their minds over clocking texture, gravity, twigs, stumps, drops, ice, their brother sailing out of nowhere and stealing their line… Go to Youtube and search up the Isle of Man TT and consider the computations those guys are making on the fly--country roads at 170 mph… We are gods of capability.
So celebrate and scrutinize. Play that music and wiggle that body. Jump, swim, run, pedal, sing, paint, and fire every last nerve you possibly can before they fizzle. We are superheros. It's all a relative thing. And by the way, Mars is a mile away.
