“Light is the only connection we have with the Universe beyond our solar system and the only connection our ancestors had with anything beyond Earth. To look up is to look back in time, because the ancient beams of light are messengers from the Universe's distant past.” Brian Cox
“For my part I know nothing with any certainty,
Vincent van gogh
but the sight of the stars makes me dream.“
– The letters of vincent van gogh
We humans are dreamers. Looking to the world around us for inspiration, we seek to imprint meaning on every little detail of our lives whether it’s suffering, emotions, or our impossible existence. Of the many things we look to for inspiration, stars have been a pillar of every imaginative mind that has ever pondered on our existence in this ever-expanding Universe we claim ours, and what better example of an imaginative mind than that of artists, like van Gogh, who looked to the stars to make sense of life. You’ve probably looked up at the hundreds of visible stars in the polluted night sky and wondered if there is life out there, if we’re alone in the darkness, and how it’s ever possible that we came into existence. You might have felt a moment of dissociation when you reflected on your life and the fact that there is literally no reason for us to exist, yet we do. We did not have to be created yet here we are thinking of ourselves as the most important part of the Universe, trying to find meaning for our life as though it was made just for us…arrogant little humans aren’t we?
Let me take you through a journey of perspective…
If we look at the way the Universe is proposed to be expanding, the center most point serves as the origin of expansion and every other object in existence is being hurled away with no certainty or control of where it’s going.
This is us, sitting unbothered in the Milky Way galaxy. These are the stars we see in our night sky. Every shimmer of light you’ve seen in the sky resides here. They are lone stars, nebulae, and planetary systems like our solar system. The only reason we see these magical stellar objects is because the light emitted from them traveled far enough through interstellar space in just the right direction to meet our eyes after hundreds of millions of years.
Beyond those stars that we see at night, we build powerful telescopes that capture light of star systems beyond our Milky Way by building powerful telescopes which have captured breathtaking and thought-provoking images like this. Every spot of light you see is a galaxy like our own, harboring billions of star systems each with their own histories, possibilities, and uncertainty. How many forms of life are also out there looking at our galaxy wondering who else is thinking about them? Try zooming into this image to see just how many galaxies exist…mind you this image only captures a miniscule point in the sky.
Going back to the idea of expansion, the further objects move away from us at unthinkable speeds the further the light emitted from them has to travel to reach us. That is, for objects that haven’t already disappeared from our night sky forever. Those stars that you see just happen to be close enough for the light to still reach us millions of years later. In fact, only 6% of the Universe is observable with the remaining 94% never to be seen.
Stars past a certain point in space move as fast away from us as we move away from them, and we are cumulatively moving away from each other faster than the speed of light meaning the light emitted from that star will never reach ours. Nothing we will ever emit will reach them. When you look up at the night sky and wonder what life exists in the light you see, think about what exists in the light you don’t see, from galaxies too far to be observed in the darkness beyond the stars. The darkness that harbors unfathomable possibilities of life that we simply cannot imagine yet will never see.
If all of Earth’s history is contained within a single beam of light for an observer to capture, who will there be to capture it and analyze it if it will never reach any celestial bodies outside our closest neighbors? Do you feel lonely now in space? Everything we ever gave importance in this life is contained within this miniscule speck of dust we call Earth.
Every stress, worry, and doubt you’ve experienced. Every thought and emotion you’ve had. Every interaction and relationship you’ve built with others and every little impact you’ve had on someone else’s life…all contained here with no one to see it. If no one sees it then do our lives and contributions really matter? What makes an experience or interaction important? Does someone have to acknowledge it for it to be impactful? Should the fact that no other form of life will see what we’ve done stop us from living life and continuing to have those thoughts, emotions, and experiences? Should we stop doing anything if everything will eventually end with no sign of our existence left behind for anyone to observe?
No.
Life and its perception is about perspective. Looking beyond our own community on Earth, nothing matters. The Universe doesn’t even know we exist. Everything may as well continue as though we aren’t even here. That patient you’re treating doesn’t matter, their life means nothing on this scale. Your emotions don’t matter. You don’t matter. Zooming in to our lives here on Earth, however, we are all we have. We are each other’s ‘other life forms’, the ones we continually search for in the night sky. We are the ones who give importance and meaning to each other’s experiences, emotions, and thoughts.
It is contained within us all the knowledge that we seek from ‘out there’. Every little interaction you have with someone, even just a smile, a “good morning”, will forever change that person’s life. You just impacted that person until they die and every other person they interacted with since. Your impact is as far reaching as the light of the stars you ponder over at night, for generations to come. You are the observer of light within people on this Earth, and within you is the light people yearn for. Turn your telescopes on yourselves as you continue to wonder about the Universe.
You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself.
Eckhart Tolle
Because life does not matter on such a massive scale as that of the Universe, that does not invalidate our thoughts and actions. You should not stop living a life worth living despite the inevitable end approaching us all. You should, however, change the perspective with which you live your life. Live a life of appreciation for the small things people do and the contributions each human that has ever lived had made and the contributions you and everyone around you will ever make, because it’s within those contributions that our impact and history is contained. Live a ‘looser’ life as you learn to accept stress, worry, and grief and allowing yourself to feel the emotions associated with them before setting them loose, while also allowing punishing yourself less for ‘cheat days’ and indulging in pleasures.
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan
Pale Blue Dot
An Explorative Mind 
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