Striving Towards Excellence

–Karthik Gurumurthy

Honestly, the more I think about the human body, the more amazed I am. Like, we’ve created all this incredible technology, but nothing we’ve built even comes close to what our bodies can do naturally.

Think about it—car tires wear down and need replacing after a few years, but the soles of our feet? They can handle decades of walking, running, hiking, dancing, and they just keep going. I’ve walked miles and miles in my life, and my feet are still doing their job.

Or the fact that we’re 75% water, right? We have millions of tiny pores all over our skin, and somehow not a single drop leaks out. Meanwhile, I can’t even trust a water bottle not to spill in my bag. Our bodies are basically the most efficient container ever designed.

And balance—I don’t even think about it most of the time. I can stand on one foot, walk on uneven ground, catch myself when I trip. Any object? You need to prop it up or it falls over. But our bodies just… balance. Automatically.

Here’s another wild one: my phone dies after a few hours if I don’t charge it. My laptop needs to be plugged in. But my heart? It’s been beating nonstop since before I was even born, and it’ll keep going until the very end. No charging breaks, no maintenance stops. Just constant, reliable work.

Same with blood circulation—no pump we’ve ever made could run 24/7 for 80+ years without breaking down. But our hearts and blood vessels do it effortlessly, delivering oxygen and nutrients to every part of our body, every single second.

And our eyes? I can look at a sunset, read tiny text on my phone, spot a friend across a crowded room, adjust to bright sunlight and then a dark room—all without thinking about it. The best cameras in the world, the ones that cost tens of thousands of dollars, still can’t match what our eyes do naturally. They capture everything in stunning detail, in real-time, with incredible dynamic range.

Our sense of taste is insane too. I can tell the difference between dozens of flavors—sweet, salty, bitter, sour and every subtle variation in between. No lab instrument can identify flavors the way my tongue can when I’m eating a meal.

And touch—I can feel the difference between silk and cotton, sense when someone barely brushes against me, feel the warmth of the sun or a cool breeze. The most advanced sensors engineers create still can’t match the sensitivity of our skin.

Then there’s our voice. I can whisper, shout, sing, laugh, create thousands of different sounds and tones that express exactly what I’m feeling. And my ears? They can hear all of it, make sense of it, understand the meaning behind words, pick up on emotion in someone’s tone. No device can truly replicate that understanding.

When I really stop and think about all of this, I realize these aren’t just cool biological features—they’re genuine gifts. I mean, the fact that I woke up this morning, that my heart was beating, that I could see and hear and feel and move? That’s a miracle I take for granted way too often.

So yeah, I’m trying to be more grateful for all of this. Complaining about little things feels pretty silly when you consider everything that’s working perfectly in the background, every single day, keeping me alive and letting me experience life.