It's like God gives a 4-month old a grand piano. Or maybe it's like a cave-couple giving birth to Shakespeare. They think he's the runt of the litter, a bit of a weakling who doesn't bring home the wooly mammoth to feed them through the winter. What is he good for? Or Mozart born into a family with no musical instruments. What is this talent we have, to play a certain instrument that has yet to be designed? To write words that have yet to be uttered, where a pen has yet to be devised? We may not have the dexterity or materials or maturity to use our gifts, but the gifts are seeded in our genes. If the conditions are just right and we are reaching past what we see as our limits, one day, we might find we can do something unexpected. (Or it may be that a great great great granddaughter or a great great great great grand nephew will be in conditions where some undreamed of ability can become manifest.)

It's like code is in us. It's a matter of timing, of stretching forward, where unexpressed seeds can finally germinate. It's the reaching for sunlight and water. We're designed to bloom in extraordinary ways. Maybe we can't see it, or imagine what it is, but every person has something unique to offer. Our diversity isn't a mistake or a curse. It's our riches.

So let's stop whining and instead, celebrate the believers and unbelievers, the many kinds of lovers and non-lovers, the dreamers and the builders, the silent and the noisy, the artists and the scientists, the mechanics and the gardeners, the baby-sitters and the manicurists, and the race car drivers who go in circles as fast as they can. Let us follow our passions, however odd they may seem. We're contributing our idiosynchratic wrenches, funnels, gerbils, tin cans, flags, apricots, concertos, pacifiers and gumballs to the collective effort. We're squabbling, laughing, wrestling and punching. We're inventing our fantastic journey as we go.