The little actions humans do that are actually marvelous

The other day when I was waiting at a crossing for the light to change, I observed a fellow pedestrian jaywalk efficiently within a hair’s breadth of the car’s arrival, without any incident occurring. While this would seem mundane to most of you and normally it would to me, I had been watching a documentary on the human brain the other day and how much it checks the things we do.

Think about it this way. In the span of a few seconds, this jaywalker within is mind has considered several factors before he makes his next step. First is the distance between him and the other side. The jaywalker can then immediately gauge how long it will take him to get to that point. Then they would have to consider the velocity of incoming cars and judging from the speed of how these 1–2-tonne hunks of metal are moving towards the crossing. Then he has to have knowledge of his own personal velocity against that of the cars and make the decision before his first step. This occurs in all of a few seconds.

Think about how much innate intelligence that requires. How many creatures in the rest of the animal kingdom that aren’t primates, pachyderms, birds, pigs or dolphins could easily calculate that? Your average domesticated cat or dog wouldn’t be able to that easily. We often marvel at human intelligence in the big things like the international space station or the internet which I am typing this on. But in fact, we should also marvel at the small things as well.

Go back thousands of years, to before the Holocene calendar begins, before the first great civilizations 12 thousand years ago. A group of Homo Sapiens sees a Wooly Mammoth herd passing through a valley. They know they cannot stop them with spears alone, most predators would not even make the attempt due to the sheer difference in mass. But the sapiens use tools, they use fire to scare the herds, they drop rocks on them to scatter. That involves knowing the impact the rock has. That involves knowing the amount of damage falling from a great height adds to force. They also have to know that fire scares the mammoths, they have to know how to approach the animals and overcome the mass difference.

Even the very act of us typing on this computer is a marvel. Not for the technological feat, though I will not deny that. Think about the very act of typing. You push certain buttons that are inherently meaningless in the grand scale, yet years of education have given them context and meaning. You push these buttons knowing they will contribute to an action that will happen on the screen, and a lot of humans can do this without even having to look at the keyboard. Meaning their brain is unconsciously aware of the layout of the keyboard and knowing where to move their fingers to rapidly get the results that they want.

The same goes for those who play video games. When you see someone play with a controller for the first time they are usually at a loss at what to do with their fingers, and what button corresponds to what. However look at an experienced gamer, especially in a fighting game with lots of combos and they will never look at their fingers once. Their eyes will rapidly follow the action on the screen and move their fingers to create the action that the character actually does. That is another marvel of the human mind.

The whole point of this, in the end, is appreciating the little mundane things that we do and realizing that in the animal kingdom what we are doing is not actually mundane, but actually amazing. You, reader, are more amazing than you give yourself credit for and you don’t need to look at the big things all the time. Marvel at the little things that you do, and let that guide you forward.

Thank you for reading my musings.

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