What she says: im fine
What she means: the average age of conception over the past 250k years is apparently 26.9. Letâs round it down to 25. Think of your birth mother. Hold her hand. Imagine her holding hands with her mother. Within 4 people, youâre back in time 100 years, and itâs an intimate family dinner. Just after WWI. Add another 16 people, a small party of 20, and youâre in the 1500s. Double it, twice, and youâre at 80 people. Your family would fill a restaurant, and youâre at the height of the Roman empire. At 100 people, Confucius is alive but Socrates has not yet been born. 100 people. Thatâs a medium sized wedding. A small lecture theatre or concert. 200 people, probably the biggest party i could ever hope to host, takes you back 5000 years. The guests at your soirĂŠe of parents would be contemporaries of the Egyptian and Indus Valley civilisations, although youâd probably be too busy fixing drinks and nibbles to talk to all of them. Just imagine it. 200 of you. Thatâs all it takes to get back 5,000 years. And we could go further. 1000 people, a decent sized concert, a large high school, and weâre at the end of the last ice age. Your ancestors are comparing their pink floyd vinyl with music played on instruments carved from wood or bones of long vanished species. Wander through the crowd. See your own features and phrases and gestures refract out like a kaleidoscope. What would they make of you? What do you make of them? Why does it feel so unfair that even that first 100 years âthat small family dinner of fourâis out of your grasp? Maybe itâs because questions of spatial distance have become negligible to us now. why, oh why, does time hold out against us so stubbornly
