I am sure once in a while when you're sitting all by yourself, you begin to ponder about the deeper things in life. Detaching from the humdrum of everyday life to dive deeper into the abstract can be really refreshing.
We have all thought about things like the meaning of life, why we are here, whether we are alone in the universe, the scale of the cosmos, and more puzzling questions like these. Although we get nowhere near to the answers in our thought sessions, it is pretty exhilarating to think about.
Also, even though we might not get anywhere close to the actual answers, we might come across some profound realizations about different aspects and dimensions that can widen our perception.
Recently I was thinking about our place in the cosmos and how we came to be and examining these two different things, I came to the realization that our lives mean so much and yet nothing at all, both at the same time.
Everything and Nothing
So, let's start with our place in the cosmos. We are all aware that there are more than 7 billion of us and we all co-exist on this planet called Earth which is huge. The surface area of the planet is 197 million square miles!
But that is nothing compared to the other planets like Jupiter and Saturn which can be over 1000 times larger than the Earth. The Sun can be a million times larger. So, compared to others, we are a tiny planet. But there's more. Our solar system is just one of hundreds of billions of solar systems that exist in our galaxy.
Zoom out more and you will find that our galaxy itself is just one of the trillions of other galaxies. And although we are not sure, our universe might be just one of an infinite number of universes. So, in the grand scheme of things, the Earth itself, is meaningless, let alone us.
But, if you shift perspective, and think about how we came to be, you will find out that most atoms in our body were forged in the core of a star that exploded in a distant past. Since matter can neither be created nor destroyed, the same matter gets recycled into different forms in the universe and we are just one such recycling.
That's why it is said that 'we are stardust' and that is a huge thing because we are literally a part of the universe and philosophically, it can be said that we are the universe's way of perceiving itself. And that's what makes us and our lives mean so much.