The Universe and You and I

It seems that all of my life I have read about peo­ple look­ing up into the night sky and feel­ing small. I have nev­er under­stood this. There has nev­er been a time in my life that look­ing upon the night sky did not make me feel large. There is that immense space and I am part of it. I can, at least, vague­ly com­pre­hend it. Those moments are the most spir­i­tu­al moments of my life.

There is a mar­velous video of the physi­cist Neil deGrasse Tyson mak­ing a few remarks about the uni­verse and our place in it. He does­n’t say much I don’t already know, and a lot of it I have said myself. He prob­a­bly says it bet­ter (and with more authority!)

We are star­dust. Life is noth­ing more than com­mon chem­i­cals “doing” chem­istry. Life is inevitable and the uni­verse is full of life scat­tered all around. This is not sci­ence fic­tion, it is sim­ply the odds. You and I are a part of it.*

Hap­py New Year world!

*Peo­ple who do not read this blog may or may not be part of it.… :)