Last night, while reading my ritual "How many BuzzFeed posts can I read before my head starts to hurt", I came across one about space. Not necessarily what I normally read, but for some reason I clicked on it.
As I read it, I remembered being in science class. Sitting, listening, marveling at the thought that our Earth, which we feel is so impressive, is comparable to a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things.
Thinking about it is one of those mind altering trances. You know, those spaces where your mind seems to have unlocked the secret to the universe. Those times when you ponder "What happens when I die?" or "Is God real?". Those peculiar moments when your brain is pulled straight out of your skull and you can see clearly, even for a few brief moments, that all is not as it appears. The test you did so poorly on the other day no longer matters, because at the end of the day, is there a purpose for math anyways? Is there a purpose to your life? Or are you as insignificant as one of the millions of ants you accidentally killed in the driveway yesterday.
It's kind of tough to think about really. To pull outside of your own selfish shell and ponder the enormity of the world around you in comparison to yourself.
To think that if we shrunk the Sun to the size of a white blood cell, and shrunk the Milky Way on the same scale, it(the Milky Way) would be the size of the United States. Mind. Blowing.
So as I sat, swooning in the revelation that life is not all it appears, I was aghast to think that I myself, am the creation of some 55 million years of evolution. Yes, me and you and everyone you know or know of are those who survived, and made it through the evolutionary process.
And it made me sick. My stomach churned and I felt my chest constrict to think that a world more focused on Kim Kardashian's ass and viral videos is what we have evolved to become.
I'm not saying this to preach or bring out a whole new moral lesson, or to even say that I've "become a new person, and will focus my life's efforts on whateverthehellitisIchoosetodo". I'm just sharing because it scared me.
It honest to god scared me that I am the end product of what is supposed to be a beautiful process, and most of the time I can't pull my own head out of my ass to worry about something useful.
So I'm not sure what I should do to change this. And I'm really not sure of what you should do either. All I'm saying is, out of every random piece of information you read on the Internet in the next three weeks, maybe you could remember this. That you are a product of some pretty damn impressive evolution. We as a human species have done some pretty amazing things, and we can continue to do so.
We just have to remember that there is more out there than just us.There are people that live all around us. Animals that live all around us. That whatever exists in the dark places of the solar system is here with us as well.
If there are aliens probing our brains at night, the least we could do is show them the things that make us extraordinary humans. Our compassion, our ability to care and love. Not the things that pull us down -- the drugs, violence and hate that permeates our culture today. Then maybe they can show us some compassion too. Everyone loses their way every once in awhile -- it just feels like right now it's our whole world.
At the end of it all, whether you choose to remember this or you just choose to think about it for five minutes until your next video loads, maybe we just need to work on remembering the things that helped us beat evolution in the first place. The ingenuity, the passion, the respect for the world around us. Maybe then can we be something evolution is proud of.
