What is your opinion on the meaning of life?
The meaning of life. What other topic has humanity pondered more? It is a good question to ask yourself and others as you assemble your own world view. It happens to be 5am on the conclusion of one of the most stressful weeks of my life, so Iām not sure I will give you a coherent opinion or just wax philosophically, but alas, here we go.
First, letās talk about our insignificance, and then we will cover why it is important.
Everyone you know lives on this planet. They were born here. They will die here. This was true for your parents, your grandparents, and it will be true for you, your kids, your grandkids, and so on. We can expand this even further. Every human being that has ever lived has done so on this planet, and it is just one of eight in our solar system. Our solar system is centered around one star: the Sun. The Sun is just one of the 100 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is one of an estimated 200 billion to 2 trillion or more galaxies in the observable Universe. We, as a species, a planet, a solar system, or even a galaxy are cosmologically insignificant.
Letās talk about time. I am 28 years old. This puts me somewhere around 35% through my allotted time in life. My mother was taken from us in her 50s. Even to us humans we would consider this to be very young for someone to leave this world for whatever comes next. I learned this week that my grandmother has days to live, and she is 86. By all accounts she has lived a very full and wonderful life. The oldest human being on record live to the age of 122.
If we jump back in time to experience the histories of great kingdoms rising and falling we need only go back hundreds or thousands of years. If we follow our evolutionary path back we find that the first primates diverged from other mammals around 85 million years ago. Going back further we find that life is around 3.85 billion years old. The Earth, our spaceship in this grand journey through the stars, is 4.5 billion years old. If we continue to zoom out we find the Universe to be 13.8 billion years old. If we break that down, all life on Earth ā literally everything that has ever lived ā has been around for approximately 27% of the Universe. I have personally experienced a percentage of the Universeās lifespan that is so small it requires scientific notation to represent.
Letās consider population. Right now 7.4 billion humans inhabit the Earth. If you are one in a million then there are literally 7400 other people who are just like you. You can literally never be the best at everything. In fact, it is unlikely you will be the best at anything. There will assuredly be someone smarter, someone better trained, someone better looking, someone more successful, and so on.
I do not bring up any of this to imply that the Universe is mean, dreary, and unfair. The Universe is, for better or worse, indifferent in all ways. This is neither good nor bad. It merely is the way of things. That said, being insignificant does not mean we are not incredibly special. Maybe in the grand scheme of things we donāt matter to the Universe. Maybe our time on this planet is brief, and perhaps no one will remember our names 100 years from now. But the chances of you even being who you are at all are basically impossible. Consider your lineage on a cosmic scale. Billions of years ago stars lived and died to churn out the elements that would eventually find their way into your specific configuration. Your atoms have been on a journey as old as the Universe across so much space it is not possible for our minds to even consider. You are one of a kind, and billions of years in the making. The Universe will never see another being quite like you ever again.
There is so much beauty in this. In a way you are a time traveler. Once upon a time you were probably part of a dinosaurs, plants, fish, and probably other human beings. When your time is done you will return your atoms to the world at large and begin again. In the words of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, āYes, we are part of this Universe. We are in this Universe. But more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us.ā
Our cosmic insignificance is where we derive meaning. The Universe doesnāt care what you do, so it is up to you to decide why you get out of the bed in the morning and what to do with the brief amount of time that has been allotted.
It is perfectly acceptable to be content as an experiment of the Universe. We are who and what we are because the Universe made us this way. In a lot of ways, we are simply along for the ride. We are free to pursue our biological imperatives to self-actualize and reproduce. Lifeforms are designed to perpetuate their existence, and this is just the Universeās way of observing itself from new vantage points.
We can also utilize a very special trait of human beings that no other creature can boast: the ability to actively hold a contradiction in our mind and even use it to our own benefit. This is my moral imperative: It is impossible for any one person to make a difference, and that is precisely why you must strive to make a difference. The only impact you will ever have is right here, right now, on the people and places around you.
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