You Are a Crystal

Consider this quartz crystal. It is from the Himalayas.

This crystal is a perfect recording of the mountain-building forces that were happening all around it during its formation. The heat, the pressure, the intense geological activities that all had an effect on it as it formed layer-upon-layer over the course of perhaps thousands of years. No other crystal is exactly like this one, as no other crystal underwent the exact forces that were specific to its exact location during the period of time that it was forming. Those forces, within that period of time are recorded in its size and shape.

This crystal is a perfect representation of a life. It is part nature and part nurture.

Nature is the silicon-rich solution that this crystal grew out of. The silicon molecules are its DNA. They determined that this solution would form quartz instead of some other mineral. Within that DNA are certain hardwired patterns that determine how the molecules will bond with one another to form a crystal.

            Nurture is the specific forces that acted upon that solution in that specific spot over the course of time that it formed. Each crystal is unique in that regard. Even if they form right next to each other, the conditions are going to be slightly different. They might be similar, like human beings who are twins, but they are not the same, like those same twins who are two separate beings with two separate sets of experiences.

A similarly sized crystal also from the Himalayas. Note its similarities (nature) and differences (nurture).

Consider your life

From materials rich in DNA, a human formed. Though that human is made out of the same kind of molecules as other humans, it is completely unique because the conditions and circumstances of its life are completely unique. You were born in a certain place. The conditions of your life led you to make certain decisions and to grow in certain ways, each experience forming a layer upon which subsequent layers would be built. These layers occurred within, as personality. Your emotional responses to the exact history of the outside forces that were occurring around you during the course of your life set in motion the unique direction your future reactions would follow. 

            These layers also are physical. Like a crystal growing outward, your life also grows outward. From the maternity ward to the nursery to your home to school to wherever you may travel, the physical space that your life has occupied grows ever outward. Not just on Earth, but in the entire universe, as this planet, this solar system, this galaxy speed ever-outward through space.

You, as a crystalline structure

Speaking of space, molecules are made up of mostly empty space. I’ll talk about how astronomically huge the empty space is in a future post (here). The way molecules form what we call objects and solids is by vibrating back and forth so quickly as to take up all that empty space within the much slower calibration of our five senses. That vibration is why we perceive the crystal pictured above as being solid.

            What if you took someone’s life, from beginning to end and had it vibrate back and forth as quickly as those molecules vibrate? So that instead of it taking 90 years in each direction, it took less than a millisecond. That life would create a solid form, a crystalline structure unique to all the experiences and places that person had and went to. Were you to vibrate everyone who was around in that 90 year period, their crystals would be interwoven, forming a matrix, much like the matrix crystals grow in, with each crystal having an effect on and being affected by every other crystal it comes into contact with within that life span.

            Your life forms a uniquely beautiful crystalline structure. You are a perfect historical record of how you, a human being, changed and grew as a result all the forces that occurred around you as well as the forces you exerted upon those around you, effecting the growth of their crystalline structures as they were affecting yours.

This is a rock. You are a sentient being.

The beauty of this crystal is the beauty of you. If you are looking for magic from this or any other crystal, simply think about the awesome mountain-building forces it took for it to form. If it is inspiring to hold something that contains a perfect historical record of that energy, then you've found the magic. But it’s not in the crystal. It’s inside of you. 

            A crystal in your hand is a unique and detailed perspective of an entire mountain range. The crystal of your life is a unique and detailed perspective of humanity. The quartz crystal is a story that has never been told before and could never be told exactly the same way by any other. Your life is a story that has never been told before and could never have been created by anyone but you.  Both crystalline structures are one-of-a-kind. Both are uniquely beautiful.