“We are made of star stuff.” — Carl Sagan

Billions of years ago and billions of miles away, this limitless space we occupy, our tiny speck of cosmic dust, doesn’t seem to mean shit to the vast majority of us. I saw that photograph above, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope and it didn’t look real to me.

The above admission is like a science fiction writer beginning his story. Here’s the thing, it is real and for some reason, it doesn’t matter to us, at least judging by our behavior. We are fighting each other and hurting each in unimaginable ways, absent a shred of any understanding or humility, regarding the miracle of our existence.

It’s like we are all wearing these incredibly, invisible magnifying glasses, turning the minutiae of our existence into all there is or ever was, as far as we are concerned. No amount of philosophy or art or religion or intellect has made a dent in our myopic vision. The magnifying glass, acting more like horse blinders to us, thinking the sky is like an umbrella, rather than a doorway to immeasurable space, a vacuum of infinity.

A couple of days ago, I looked at that image and marveled at it. Modernity is all about shrinking things, little artificial, microscopic chips that are capable of doing much bigger things. Then, I wondered why the immensity of the universe doesn’t really matter. We are so preoccupied with this little ball of dirt and water   we inhabit that the sheer awe of somehow managing to exist is tragically trivialized.

How the fuck did all this happen and when? Quantifying distance in light years and time in billions of years is where God came from. In the midst of this earthen shit show we all have front row seats for, these kind of images make me feel incredibly stupid. What is it that is so important, it shrinks so many of us to take advantage of our brothers and sisters? Personally, I don’t give a shit about color or beliefs that enflames our sensibilities. This is our world, it belongs to us all.

You know, it really doesn’t matter if there is any other life out there. In a way, how cool would it be that out there, at the border of forever, we are it? Maybe, we are God’s custodians, all alone, breathing the only breath there is.

I have always thought that with the infinite possibilities, it is crazy to think there is no other life. I think we are terrified of being all alone. Let’s say that it is the case, then what the fuck is our excuse for mistreating each other? If we are it, shouldn’t we be behaving a hell of a lot better to each other?

In the science fiction story I will never write, maybe we have known all along that it is just us, but we created this myth about others being out there. Life is meant to be cherished in the vacuum of the forever, because it is a miracle far beyond our ability to understand.

I try and make all my stories small, bits that are easily digestible. OK, every now then, I drift out there just a little and I am happy to blame the Buddha for that. I know he didn’t see our lives like bordered boxes that begin and end with our first breath and last. I think more about that these days. Crazy as it sounds, it is embraced by that photograph. We can substitute energy for life for this purpose. Maybe, we just go back to the energy we came from.

In a way, I think maybe we come from that space out there. We are more than our lives and there is simply no other explanation that makes sense. I know I am not crazy. Out there, in that photograph, life is born and never dies. You know, the idea that you can see the picture doesn’t automatically mean you have the capability of understanding it.

Science has such a certainty about it. I suspect there is nearly uniform agreement that with all of the possibilities, too numerous to actually quantify, there must be other life. Voyagers 1 and 2 have been out there for nearly fifty years now and those Gold Records put together by Carl Sagan have not been heard by any other beings, since they left here. They are billions of miles away and we are still communicating with them, which we seem to just take for granted. 

Sometimes, I wonder about the idea of forever. Again, looking at that photograph, has that view always been there? When did all of this happen and is there anything such thing as before? We love our stories here to have beginnings, middles and endings. When did all this begin? Can you really pull a rabbit out of a hat?

Science loves its answers, like the Big Bang Theory. Maybe, we can take a pretty good guess when earth became earth, but when did forever become forever?

I know our ancestors were fascinated with it all. We keep discovering new Stonehenge’s, thanks to advances in technology. We have been using the sky to track seasons and time for millennia. I am not so sure how good a job we have been doing regarding our behavior. 

It would be so interesting if every single person, everywhere in the world, at the exact same time, looked at these magnificent images of a space all around us. It is so large, it has no end. It just keeps going and going until there are no words to describe the endless distances that surround our planet. At that moment, how could anyone think they are big or small? We are all exactly the same size and of equal importance. It would be so obvious that we all need to come together and care for this little miracle in the cosmos and for each other.

A guy can dream, can’t he?

LISTEN TO IT HERE:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/15790065-out-there