Up till now, I’ve written on things with more solid footing. My thoughts have been based on experiences in my daily life, and even when I spoke of love in the open or in private logs, I felt my questions fairly articulate. With the topic of cosmic significance, however, it continues to be a lot to wrap my head around. Some of us are not very privileged with unshakable faith, or answers tightly held to the end. I have wondered about the point of it all.
In the grand scheme of things, I have wondered about us; the relevance of our sparks and drawn-out lives. These brief moments in the context of infinity. “Human beings existing on a buoyant rock in the middle of everything and nowhere. We are alone and maybe crowded all at once; our beauty is belied by being precious in uniqueness while being utterly unremarkable at the same time” , I once wrote. You might read that and think of gloom, but I thought - no, think - those thoughts with a smile. I find it beautiful.
It isn’t that the universe is infinite - we can’t say for sure. But in finite systems and structures, there they are - infinities.
There are innumerable combinations of numbers, letters and symbols to make passwords; the possible combinations of those limited musical notes we know are without end, and you will never run out of dreams. Still, if one person’s mind can paint more dreams than we can count, how many things are possible in this cosmos?
The universe is a canvas painted with stars, a never-ending masterpiece stretching out in all directions. A place where galaxies swirl and dance, where black holes gobble up everything in their path and where distant suns burn fire that has lasted billions of years. The sheer size of it is staggering; the distances are so vast that light itself takes millions of years to travel between the here and there. And yet, amid this infinite expanse, we find ourselves on a speck of rock, seeking answers to questions that have been asked for centuries, making morning coffee and getting infected by the littlest of things.
I might have only made the picture grimmer but I recently found some articulation for my more positive disposition. Why do we think of the significance of things in the universe and wonder only about size?
We seem to instinctively maintain that the biggest of things do the most mattering but I recently had my attention drawn by David Deutsch to the way things work on our home planet. On earth, It is often the smallest things that have the biggest impacts. Atoms, the building blocks of matter, create everything we see around us. Single cells, though simple in design, hold the blueprint for all living things. Even invisible viruses can bring about massive change, just think of their ability to disrupt entire societies. And as humans, although we may seem small, our actions and choices have the power to shape the world and leave a lasting impact.
Dr David Deutsch is a physicist who believes that what makes these tiny things so relevant is their ability with knowledge. You can only know a finite amount of things, but the reach of your knowledge is positively infinite. So far, nothing can do this as well as us- take ideas, get to meanings and share them with the world or potentially the universe. Viruses matter because they know how to store information and give it over; our cells work this magic, and us - We are important because we know and we can know infinitely more things. We can even pass this knowledge on and make sure it gets updated in the right conditions.
For now, this is my position. It might be something I always knew implicitly and it might just be brand new information another human made and shared that made enough sense to me. Till this gets updated with enough rebuttal or i am dissuaded adequately; I’d say you probably matter.