Looking up, part two
On the eve of my 45th birthday, I stop to consider how many times I want to check out of the human race. The selfishness, the myopia, the steady decline of civility, the increase of stupidity… all of it makes me angry that I have to face it every day. My weakness, it is, that I prefer solitude to engagement. I’m working on that, but it doesn’t erase my reasons for wanting to stay away.
That being said, it’s when I look up at the night sky that I realize there is more to life than being human. There are the millions of species other than homo sapien that call this planet home. There are the hundreds of miles of ocean depth that have yet to be seen or understood. There are probably more modalities of life than we can see that are living with us – they may even be laughing silently as we run ourselves to extinction.
But, more than all of that, I look up at night and realize how small it all is in the face to the infinity above. We are a tiny speck of dust swimming in a vast particle sea. We are but fuzz on a single peach in an endless ocean of fruit. Held against the backdrop of the universe, we do not even cast a shadow.
And, knowing that, the fear and anger this century brings me drops away, if just for a moment. Because, in the final rinse, it means nothing. Only I remain, and that’s enough.
