"Even through your hardest days, remember we are all made up of stardust" - Carl Sagan
I never shared the hopelessness that some experience while thinking of the extent of the universe. In some ways I've always felt bigger because of it. It meant that there would always be something to discover, something to notice, something to reach for. It brought a certain kind of comfort in knowing that no matter the advancements science could make in the meantime, there would be something left for me. And it thus made my problems seem a little smaller in contrast. I believe there is a level of clarity to be found when we allow ourselves to look outwards and remind ourselves why we are who we are and why we find solace in our passions.
But like all aspects of life, we will always encounter obstacles. I want to say that we are discovering and creating beauty in this world every day, and that if we just face every hardship and struggle with an awareness of that beauty, a solution will logically follow. But that would mean accepting blind ignorance, because there could be no real beauty without an equal amount of ugliness that we have no doubt contributed to. I would love to say that logic and reason is always the way to enlightenment. But as people we contain so much emotion, whether that be pride, compassion, love, greed, or empathy. The fact of being human means that we have the capacity to have these experiences, so can we consider a solution to a human problem with no consideration of these emotions to be in itself a human resolution at all? Can we ever expect a 'perfect' solution to any human problem when being human means to be imperfect and make mistakes? So where does that leave us?
“Life is made up of challenges that cannot be solved but only accepted.”-Roger Ebert
I have never claimed to be distinctly philosophical, instead I too made an effort to be as logical and reasonable as possible. To take as much heart out of my problem solving as possible to find the most ‘reasonable’ conclusion. While it was not a strategy executed in vain it was also not perfect. There is no formula or approach anyone can take to ensure no one gets hurt, yet the value that comes with that fact may be a piece of our best attempt.
Assume for a second that life on earth really was a singular near impossible one in an infinite occurrence. Think of what it would mean to you and mean about you. Not only are you a part of the near impossible chance of life, but you also defied the odds to be born. This is not to say that we should all be grateful to exist, there are more than enough books and TikTok pages that will tell you that. But this is to reflect that we have a preexisting compulsion and admiration for earth's phenomenon. We care about our families, we care about our friends, about our communities, about our species. There is nothing about being alive that would be worth anything without others. Somewhere along the way we have lost the priority for care, investing worth and success into money and status instead of contribution. We are consumed by materialism leaving whole communities behind in favor of a chase for an artificial shallow wealth.
Now when looking to the future, no progress will be made by wallowing in dread or pity. The first step to development is accepting that the work will never be done. Our world is becoming more and more complicated every day, especially now in a technological boom. Once we as a majority can accept that a degree of permanent damage is a part of our reality, the sooner we can advance to a place where real compromises are possible. From there we cannot be wary of corrections, much of our tension in our societies come from a need to be right and to ‘win’ rather than being thorough. It all will come down to unlearning dangerous levels of greed and unchecked pride. It means consciously bringing down the structures that don't protect all of us in favor of something we haven't come up with yet.
Thank you so much for following along to my rambling, here is a little palette cleanser:
https://youtu.be/8t_xSCGfahY?si=aoOxhc5lMy6zc2iJ
Very cool that Hubble showed us 100 billion galaxies on your birthday. I've always been delighted that the "pale blue dot" photo Carl Sagan lobbied for was taken on my birthday in 1990.
ReplyDelete"I never shared the hopelessness that some experience while thinking of the extent of the universe. In some ways I've always felt bigger because of it." Same! Like Emily said, "the brain is wider than the sky..."
I was a Roger Ebert fan long before he had to face the challenge of disease that rendered him speechless (such a tragically ironic fate for a professional talker). His stoicism had a lot of credibility, he knew exactly what it means to have to accept what you cannot change.
"This is not to say that we should all be grateful to exist"- I think we should be... and should save our ingratitude for specifics.