How Much Difference Does Two Thousandth of an Inch Make?

We often attach great significance to virtually inconsequential physical characteristics, and generally brush off very important physical attributes as inconsequential. Sometimes what seems inconsequential can become vital, and seemingly vital difference are meaningless.How can we differentiate?

Pursue some of these thoughts for a moment. Imagine you are standing on the walkway in an underground public train station. You can clearly see the tracks and the third rail that is essential to propel the electric train forward. You decide to jump down and investigate how this works. During your foolhardy examination you witness a snail attempting to cross the three rails. As the snail undulates across the first rail you become fascinated by the trail of slimy fluid that the snail leave as she travels across the ground to the center rail. Suddenly, before reaching the center rail the snail stops as if questioning the sensibility of moving on. You decide that the snail needs your help and you pick her up and place her on the center rail to give her a boost.Instantly, the snail vaporizes and you, by the skin of your teeth survives.

Now this may seem beyond any stretch of reality. How many snails are evaporated by while inspecting three track electric rail lines. That is not the point. This weird illustration simply highlights how a very minute difference may mean the difference between life and goodbye forever! Just an inch difference between your finger and the unwary snail and you most certainly would have become gaseous too.

Life is full of close calls, and often we are unaware of how we avoided an unexpected catastrophe by seconds, minutes, inches, or a fraction thereof. At other times we seem to go bonkers ove a miniscule difference that truly makes no difference. Why?

The single most notable minuscule difference that seems to cause apoplexy and fanaticism relates to the color of our skin.The outer layer of human skin carries melatonin that colors skin. This layer is typically about 0.002 inches thick excepts where frequent contact toughens and thickens it to about 0.0100 to 0.015 inches.Below this very thin layer virtually all human anatomical characteristics of male and females members of the human species are virtually identical except for distinctive biological differences between men and women.

The phrases "thin skin" and "skin of your teeth" evoke distinctive reactions, that are commonly used to describe someone who is easily angered or agitated and hot-tempered, and a near miss that could otherwise have been harmful, respectively. Now teeth do not have skin as we all know. So the phrase is absurd, but clear. Nothing but a miracle intervened to prevent somthing harmful from happening.

The former phrase, incorporating "thin skin" also is redundant, since we all are very thin skinned. Somehow these two words have taken on a separate meaning that has nothing to do with the differences in skin thickness.

Now let's use the two phrases together. Imagine a heated discussion between two ethnically different humans.One shouts out,"Jose, you are a stupid thin-skinned jerk". Salem replies," You are lucky that you survived by the skin of your teeth since you are so stupid". Soon the two are at it verbally, hopefully. But possibly the anger escalates and skin color becomes a real point of inflammation. Before long slurs are echoing the space between the two combatants, and within minutes blood is drawn. Surprisingly, both individuals bleed red blood, even though their skin colors differ. The shock of seeing each others red blood causes them to both stop their combat and withdraw. Both have had their thin skin abraded enough to bleed, and both momentarily realized that below their very thin skin was something that hey both shared. Could it be that we are the same under our skin, they both thought. If so our mutual hostility over each of our skin color was really stupid. As the two men began to realize their blunder, calm returned and the two walked off arm over shoulder to share an American pizza together, as new found friends.

How much difference does 0.002 inches make? Seems that it is enough to kill and hate others over. Rather than be color blind we should consider becoming skin blind and focus instead how alike we are below our very, very thin protective layer of cells called skin. Perhaps we will really see beneath our skin for the commonalities that we all share, if we can simply overcome the prejudices caused by 0.002 inches of biological cellular material that covers our bodies.