The Reasons to Feel Large
Living and loving in our little corner of the sky
There are a million and one ways to look at the world around us and feel small. Turning our attention toward the sky, that million and one expands into an infinity full of reasons to feel utterly inconsequential.
But it’s rare that we look at the raw numbers of the universe and find reasons to feel large.
It’s true that this planet we’re on represents an incredibly small part of the night sky. Anyway we cut it, the tiny blue dot we occupy is a speck of sand on a beach that stretches entire oceans. The time we’ll be here is insignificant when we remember the billions and billions of years that stars have burned and black holes have pulled.
But there are metrics by which we can actually feel enormous when we consider who and what we are. As novelist and YouTube personality Hank Green asks and answers:
“So why do we think anything here matters at all? … There are really good, human answers to that question. Answers like: we give our universe meaning. We matter to each other. But there are also… some kind of objective answers. …
While the universe is astoundingly big, indeed very possibly infinite in size, it’s not that big in time … The universe is young, compared to both infinity and compared to its eventual lifespan. Life on earth is one continual chemical system that dates back 3.7 billion years — which means that this wild frolic that includes everything from brachiosaurs to [boy bands] has existed for 27% of the lifetime of the universe. We do not take up much space, but we have taken up a lot of time.”
We know that there’s no overstating our smallness. But to be small isn’t to live lives that are without meaning or purpose.
Even while life may be out there, it doesn’t appear to be commonplace. The spaces between the planets of our own solar system are vast and lifeless voids.
In a known universe that stretches 93 billion light years across, it’s difficult to deny that our circumstances are something pretty exceptional. It’s rare for atoms and elements to assemble into life and find avenues toward understanding themselves. To be a part of the universe… learning what it is to be a part of the universe — it’s a pretty special thing. To both live and understand life’s majesty: it’s not to be taken for granted.
Our accomplishments are plain proof that we’re colossal.
Getting to this place was no small task. It took billions of years of painstaking evolution for us to emerge from cells in churning seas and begin roaming the land. It was a complicated path between the creatures with those first precursors to legs, and the walking, talking, sentient, warring, dancing, questioning, controlling, philosophizing people we are today.
To be on the other side of this great evolution experiment we chanced into… it’s remarkable. To be beings bearing the weight of each and every innovation that came before us… it’s a humbling privilege. But it’s also an empowering right. With the internet at our fingertips, electricity in our walls, and smartphones in our pockets, we’ve become walking giants.
We’ve built trains and planes and rockets and amassed intangible reservoirs of knowledge that bounce between borders at the speed of light. We’ve decoded genomes and created virtual reality helmets to escape away into imaginary worlds. We’ve crafted nuclear weapons and Large Hadron Colliders and artificial intelligences that improve at rapid rates and in unpredictable ways.
To be a conscious being is strange. So often, we view ourselves as singular entities. We are our thoughts. “I think therefore I am.”
Where the brain ends and the self begins is a blurry line. Distinguishing “I” from the notions and emotions bouncing through our heads is no easy task. But it grows weirder still to grasp when we remember the complex ecosystems we each represent. The human body is a full-fledged universe in its own right.
A single human cerebellum has around 69 billion neurons.
At any given moment, there may be over 30 trillion living cells working in intricate harmony inside of us — from the neurons firing in our brains to the bacteria in our guts. Our bodies are complex networks of systems and processes.
But where the night sky is an order-less, endless random, we’re products of meticulous and biological precision. We’re the minds that emerged from a strange celestial soup. We’re the concrete creatures to suddenly rise from this indefinite expanse of elements, chemicals, and stardust.
Sometimes in life, it’s hard not to wrestle with a certain “What’s the point?” when we consider our place in the grand fixture of stars and nebulae in which we’ve found ourselves. Collapsing supernovas and anti-matter and deep time are topics that don’t always sit well at the dinner table. They breed disquieting thoughts. They’re enough to interrupt our routines square in their tracks and create crises of meaning.
When standing small against the back of the great chaotic everything, all of life’s pursuits are brought into question. A species worth of goals and dreams and achievements lose their very weight and context.
But our impermanence is part of what makes us special. To be a part of this here-today-gone-tomorrow melting pot of life was no small chance. To be living, laughing, and loving on this frenetic place called Earth beats so many of the billion trillion alternatives. To have families and friends and wants and fears and loves and dreams are reasons to feel… huge.
They’re reminders that we’re giants even in the face of infinities.
“It does not seem very common for the universe to find paths toward waking up… and to be a part of that… it feels very big.” — Hank Green
This article was originally published on Medium.
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Did you actually think you were finished with this?
Well, I played the GOT music while I read this again, and I was right. Nice.