The Missing Link

Think of a rock, a heavy rock that you will never be able to lift; Its 99% empty, no matter how much you compress it. Actually, everything is 99% emptiness. Everything you can touch; yourself, your possessions, your pet, the screen you are looking at, its 99% nothingness. As wrong as it may sound, physics provides no counter evidence. 

The fundamental building blocks of everything are atoms and atoms are 99% vacuum, as electrons revolve about the tiny nucleus as far away from each other as possible. Quarks and leptons make protons, neutrons and electrons. These make atoms, which make molecules which make materials which make humans, other organisms and the rest of the universe. Strictly speaking, our universe is essentially empty. Maybe it is just nothing but there is just so much borne out of it.

         Today the world buried one of the greatest men in history. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. The man who stood for what he believed in and did the impossible, even if it meant 27 years of torture and humiliation, and many more years of conflicts thereafter. I could attribute this to the royalty lineage that ran in his family, or the education he received from the University of  Fort Hare . I could, but I won’t. Nelson was a boy who tended herds like other cattle-boys, spent much time outside with other boys , like everyone else he was 99% empty. He wasn’t superhuman by any standards, he simply made the right choices.

            Here is a story of another nobody to whom we owe the pleasure of the modern day decent life. You've probably heard a million times before that Thomas Edison made the light bulb and Faraday gave us electricity. Here’s another name you’ve probably never heard of; Nikola Tesla. Tesla made the first hydroelectric power plant, he played a major role in developing alternating current and on top of that we owe him for advances in wireless communication, lasers, x-rays, radio and a lot more. In his lifetime, Tesla registered more than 111 American patents and around 300 patents worldwide. I would also attribute this to his abnormally large memory or his mother’s genetics but Nikola Tesla was, as ordinary as any university student who messes the final exam and doesn’t graduate, made of the same elements that make the rest of us.

            What then is the missing link between ‘99% emptiness’ and a world record? There has to be one, otherwise this blog would be totally pointless. That invisible link is choice. We make choices every single day of our life, we decide what we have for breakfast, what we wear, we make plans for the week, the month and the next 5 years. Choices make the missing link that scientists will never be explain. Science can explain why lack of protein leads to kwashiorkor or how water lights up our houses but it will never explain how one man can fight for the freedom of a million others or how one geek can change the course of civilization.

We are all just nothing after all we are born with nothing.  What we do with this life, the legacy we leave behind is entirely upon us to decide. We do not have control over our circumstances but it is what we do about it that matters. Not even science can predict our future with absolute certainty.  Whatever it is you want, a good career, wealth, a world record an amazing life. It’s your choice, your call.