My iPhone’s storage is almost full. What else is new? Every time that dreaded white notification pops up in the middle of my screen I start at the top of my photo album to delete pictures I don’t need. But there are always those select few pictures that I just CAN NOT get rid of yet...you know the ones I’m talking about. Blurry bar selfies from 10,000 Thursdays ago, cute (aka horribly ugly) snaps for a friend’s birthday Insta, and even a few nice pictures of my friends and I dressed up. A few. There is one set of pictures, though, that I have not brought myself to deleting off my phone yet…
Nerd alert here. Sorry.
Last fall, I took Developmental Biology. This field of study focuses on how the embryo changes and grows to form a unique animal, person, plant, whatever. In one of our labs, we were required to observe a chicken embryo under a microscope at different stages of development and we were able to see their hearts beat and what of their backbones had already formed. It was hands-down the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in all of my labs.
Yes, these are the pictures that I can’t delete off my phone yet.
I learned A LOT in that class about different chemical pathways and regulators and inhibitors that work together to create an individual. All super cool. But the specifics of development were not what I found most interesting.
I learned to appreciate how truly amazing we are. You would not believe the number of different pathways and the amount of time and the number of different types of cells that went into developing those eyeballs you’re using to read this right now. Answer: a lot. We are a culmination of conversations between cells saying “Yep, go ahead put a leg right…there” and “Kk let’s start making those optic nerves now.” We are actually masterpieces. It’s awesome.
Mild irritation ensues every time I am told to “manage storage settings” on my phone, but it’s okay because I get to look at some fancy pictures and think (even if it’s just briefly) about how cool it is that we have developed into us. This COULD be the part where I say something really philosophical how we’ve all developed into unique individuals and all that but...I’ll leave it to you to create your own ending to this anecdote about how unique you are.
Seriously though… You’ll surprise yourself.
