This One Idea Will Change How You Think About Your Entire Life
The fleeting nature of existence prompts us to reflect on the meaning of life, our place in the universe, and the impermanence of everything.
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Approximately 13.8 billion years ago, there existed nothing, as far as we know. Then, around 13.6 billion years ago, space began to rapidly expand and particles scattered across it. This marked the beginning of a skyline of stars forming. Around 12.9 billion years ago, gravity brought together matter from across the vast cosmic expanse to form the first galaxies – massive, localized collections of gas, dust, and stellar objects held together by gravitational forces.
Around 4.5 billion years ago, a cloud of gas and dust was orbiting a young star in a quiet region of an ordinary galaxy. Over time, this cloud coalesced and eventually formed a planet. This planet, a single world in a single galaxy amidst countless others in the universe, has been home to an incredible array of life forms.
According to our records, life on this planet began approximately 3.8 billion years ago. It was not until around 2.6 million years ago that living beings began creating and using tools. Later, around 150,000 years ago, language, abstract thinking, and the emergence of culture began to take shape.
In terms of the scale of human history, the entire narrative of modern humanity can be condensed into roughly the last eight ten-thousandths of a second. To put it another way, if the entire history of the universe were compressed into one day, modern humanity would not appear until after the last single second – a mere blink. And each individual's life takes place within this tiny fraction of time, lasting around four ten-thousandths of that fraction of a fraction of a fraction.
Despite the universe's vast expanse and immense complexity, we find ourselves within this infinitesimal moment of time, inextricably linked to it all through our actions and experiences. We perceive this brief moment as all-important because to us, it is – but to everything else in the universe, we are but a fleeting moment.
In his famous commentary on the Pale Blue Dot photograph taken by the Voyager 1 space probe, Carl Sagan eloquently remarked: "On that dot 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 '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... Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Our posturing, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe are challenged by this point of pale light."
Our planet is a tiny, insignificant speck in the vast, dark expanse of the universe. One day, you arrive on this planet, and soon, the days turn into a flipbook, your life unfolding like an animated film containing everything you know, love, and fear. But what feels like a film to you will be just a single frame in an infinite film to everything else.
You don't know how you got here, why you're here, or how any of this works or where it's going. No one does. And before you know it, you won't be here at all. No one will. Don't worry. Just like the entire history of the universe before you, the entire future of it will be over before you know it as well.
If you're lucky, in about 80 years, you'll close your eyes for the last time. Your loved ones – children, grandchildren, friends, and family – will attend your funeral, mourn for a little while, and then move on with their lives. They have to in order to survive.
In 200 years, all direct traces of you will be lost. Memories of you will fade away like a distant echo, distorted and inaccurate. If you did something remarkable during your lifetime, your legacy may linger for a little while longer. But eventually, it will all be forgotten.
In 100,000 years, the 21st century will be just a strange footnote in the history books, occasionally glanced at by people who no longer relate to it.
Over time, the Earth's pre-existing species will become extinct due to the natural background extinction rate. New species will replace them. Eventually, there will be no life left on Earth.
In 1 billion years, the sun will cool and expand, consuming the Earth completely. A once-lively planet billions of years old will be wiped out without a trace – a grand finale with no applause.
The sun will be dead. The Earth will be gone. The universe won't even notice.
In 100 trillion years, the last remaining stars will begin to die out, their gravesites marked by black holes formed from their remnants. The universe will become an expanding graveyard of evaporating stars.
In 1 duodecillion years, black holes will swallow up all remaining stray matter in the universe. They will soon be all that remains.
Most of the universe's lifetime will be spent in these elderly years. Between one googol and one googolplex, the last massive black hole will evaporate. One last explosion of light and energy will occur, closing the final eye of the universe.
Time itself will come to an end.
Everything that has ever occurred has, as far as everything is concerned, never occurred. The universe returns to nothing, and nothing happens forever. Of course, this is all speculation, and the universe could be infinite, cyclical, or something entirely different. The story of the universe may have ended and may continue to unfold in nearly an infinite number of ways, most of which we cannot even begin to imagine, let alone estimate and predict.
What we can know, however, is that we are here, part of that story. Of all the things that could exist, of all the things that will never come to be, for some reason, we are each one of the things that does. While we are here, we will experience life's ups and downs, laugh and cry, hopefully love and know what it means to be alive.
We will worry about the future, dread the unknown, try to make a difference, fail at times, and move on. We will die, be forgotten, and eventually become nothing more than a distant memory. But for now, we are here.
It is true that if we were to fully comprehend the profundity of every moment, our ability to carry out our daily lives would be overwhelmed. However, not considering the absurdity and insanity of our existence can lead us to become complacent and lost in false values, mundanity, and misunderstandings.
While our lives naturally consume us, insignificance ultimately consumes all life. Recognizing this can perhaps help us better see what we truly want to be consumed by while we are still here. Because soon, the rest of the universe will continue on indifferently until it all ends – or continues on forever.
Regardless, you almost certainly won't be around for any of it, and it will all be over so quickly. Blink – that's how long the rest of the universe will feel.
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