Most of the atoms which make up both our bodies were made in supernova explosions around ten billion years ago. During those years they’ve floated about the cosmos, provided fuel for many generations of stars, congealed under the force of gravity into our planet, flowed through mosquitoes, dinosaurs, whales, and everything else. Matter has always been changing forms and we’re nature’s latest creation. We’re very old yet our awareness of this world is what is constantly being born anew. The body’s like a sort of lense through which our consciousness peeks through to experience the world. But it’s just a temporary stage. This human experience is short and fleeting. That isn’t to minimize the importance of our lives, it’s just to say that we’re a part of something a lot bigger. A flow. A development. The world is ever-changing and we’re all a part of that. If you realize this, I don’t think you’ll so bad about your age. You’ll realize we’re all VERY old, billions of years old, connected to a very large process for which no force imaginable could ever separate you.
I find the ultimate contentment and peace in that thought. I’ve studied cosmology and how stars form. I’ve looked into the big bang, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. I’ve cranked equations modeling gravitation. I’ve learned how our planet formed, how the rocks flow, how and why the winds blow, why the rains pour, and why the seasons change. I’ve studied biology and pondered the inner workings of cells, how they duplicate, generate energy, and evolve into larger organisms. I’ve charted the evolution of humans from early simple swimming creatures in the ocean to us today. I’ve looked into history and how humans have formed the first civilizations. What led to our success? Where have we failed?
Take some time and just fly down that time-line, billions and billions and billions of years. It just goes on and on and on and on. Watch the big bang. Watch the space expand, the radiation cool, and let the first atoms of Hydrogen, Helium, and bits of Lithium form. Watch gravity pull them into the first stars, shining bright and beautiful and then exploding in giant bursts of radiance. THe radiance is so powerful that new denser atoms are formed. The entire periodic table of elements explodes off into space. You’re being born. Nature’s at work making you! Now watch our sun form from a giant gas cloud. It’s twirling and spinning, faster, and faster, and faster, clumping into a smaller and smaller ball, and then BOOM. It lights up! Watch little chunks of rock and debris form into larger and larger clumps leading to the planets. Think of the oceans and lightning crashing down from the red sky and the first atoms coming together from the organic materials on the shoreline. They’re replicating, replicating, replicating. They start forming into groups, then larger groups, then larger groups. Life is evolving! Those organisms start to combine and form ecosystems. Trees, plants, and mushrooms. Watch them grow. Millions and millions and millions of years. How many generations of life have gone by, using the same materials on the Earth’s surface? Millions of generations. Our atoms have been every sort of tree, bug, and reptile. Now watch the first humans evolve in Africa. Watch them migrate out into Europe. Watch them build the pyramids and those fantastic temples. Watch them ponder the universe and their origins. Follow them and their search, all the way to today. Now look at yourself in the mirror. What are you? It’s taken a lot longer than hundred years to make you and you’ll be around long after you’re dead!
Love is a beautiful thing. We look into the dark pupil of one another’s eyes, unconsciously recognizing that vast depth of space where the outer world becomes the inner world. That circular aperture extends back into its own world, infinite in all directions. Such a small hole through which to look through, but a person’s eyes say so much. Consciousness is pretty mysterious. That man or woman you love. Who or what is he/she? I’m baffled by the idea that other people see me when I’m looking into their eyes.
I’ve never found love myself. Sometimes I don’t think I can quite wrap my head around it. It’s both wonderful and terrifying at the same time. Emotions are the most complicated aspect of human cognition. They include a deep interplay and flow between every aspect of the brain. The brain is the most sophisticated thing we know of in the universe, and emotions are its most complex form of thought. That makes love and our other emotions the most complicated processes known in the universe. My journey hasn’t gone very far past where I’ve taken you so far. Our timeline ends here. I wonder if love is really something that’s understood? Thought about?
The world has a strange way of leading you where you need to go, if you only follow the cues. You’ll find your way. It’s not over. It’s never over.
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