Great Barrier Reef Reflection + Australia

Hey everyone,

I hope all of y’all are doing well. I’m sorry for not blogging like I say I would have this semester. I anticipated having more time in college than I actually did.

*Note: My writing style is supposed to emulate the way I journal, which means it may be a bit rambly and stream-of-consciousnesslike

I’m in Australia right now on a family vacation, and my time here has been very nice and relaxing. The more you travel with your family, the more you realize the destination is not nearly as important as just spending time with your family, and catching each other up on your lives. Anyways, we were at the Hamilton Islands a few days ago checking out the Great Barrier Reef, and I wanted to just write down a few quick thoughts on the micro vs macro perspective of earth.

We flew out to the reef on a helicopter and would later snorkel there. For me, sea life never ceases to amaze me (personally, I do think the marine life at Hanauma Bay in Hawaii was slightly better, but maybe it just wasn’t the best day); however, the coral systems were absolutely remarkable. At the time we went, it was low tide and some of the most gnarly and colorful corals were about 6 inches away from your face. It may seem kind of goofy, but the corals were kind of anxiety inducing and overwhelming. The patterns, colors, and designs were all so intricate that sometimes I simply found myself hyperventilating in my snorkel. Eventually, I relaxed and peacefully swam over the corals filled with noodly anemones and huge clams that would contract as I swam by. I’m pretty focused on the corals right now, but there are also lots of super cool parrot fish, needlefish, sardines, clownfish, butterfly fish, grouper, and all sorts of other vibrant reef fish.

My main reflection is that each individual mosaic created by the marine life present in your immediate frame with the corals in the background kept me well grounded in reality. The scenery I saw truly was beautiful, but the scenery I saw was very much on a micro scale. The Great Barrier Reef itself is over 300,000 kilometers in square area. It’s also visible from outer space. At the present time when I was experiencing myself swimming through the corals and watching all the marine life, that was my entire frame of reference, and it was beautiful. Yet, as I reflect on viewing the reef, I can see how limited my frame was. My experience of the reef constituted a mere fraction of the entire reef. Now, expanding that outwards indefinitely, I could say the entire reef only constitutes a fraction of the world, and the world a fraction of the solar system, . . .  (you get the point).

On the micro-scale, everything may seem irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. My experience of watching a few fish and coral structures couldn’t be of any significance in the grand scheme of the universe, but does that really matter? One of the beauties of us as human beings is choosing whether or not something is actually impactful. Expanding everything out onto a macro level can render it insignificant. What I mean by this is certain hardships and tough experiences in life can be reduced to an insignificant blip in the vision of the universe. On the contrary, memorable and cherished experiences should be approached at a microlevel. At the time I was examining the corals, I wasn’t caught up in the insignificance of the indeterminable path of the universe, I was enjoying the corals.

Maybe this didn’t make too much sense, but I was trying to reflect on the option of approaching something from a macro and micro perspective. Both perspectives can be very useful for rationalizing and making certain situations present in your life better. It can render tough times as part of the process, and it can allow you to cherish your more memorable moments in life.

I hope y’all enjoy reading my blog. I am by no means well-spoken or highly educated to write about topics like these. This is just something I do for fun. Please feel free to bounce some of your ideas or thoughts of your own with me. Also, I'll try to add some images and videos hopefully to make the blog look nicer.

Happy Holidays!