I’ve had this thing lately where I’m fascinated by space.
It started out because I was curious as to what the Earth looked like from Space at night and found these images from the space.com website which I found absolutely beautiful.
I then started watching these 10 minute bitesize videos to full length 40+ minute documentaries on each individual planet, moons and missions.
As I said, this fascinates me however, there’s also no denying that it genuinely freaks me out. I watch these videos and I feel extremely uneasy and anxious.
I’m not sure why. It isn’t as if I’ll ever go to space so it isn’t as if I have to worry about anything in that respect.
I think it’s partly because everything is so dependant on certain things doing what they’ve almost always done to ensure life continues on Earth.
I think it’s also partly because it makes me feel so small. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing however, I start to question everything. How are we here? Why are we here? Sure, I know the basics from school etc. but, I’ve always thought that the chances of us being here anyway are incredible because your parents have to meet and your grandparents and their grandparents.
Personally, my parents are from North and South London. On my Dads side his Dad was born in England and his mother in Cyprus. On my mums side her mum was born in Wales and her Dad in Ireland.
That already blew my mind as a kid.
Now I have to add in all the chances and things which had to go just right, for the conditions on Earth to be as they are in order to support life as we know it and I imagine so much more.
It comes back to my questions – How and Why? Maybe there are no reasons, but it just seems too incredible for there to be no reason for all of this.
I just watched a video ‘Time Lapse of the Future: A Journey to the End of Time‘. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know how much weight to put on the information in this video however, what did stand out to me was how little time there is for life within our universe.
It states in the video that the majority of time in the Universe will be without life as we know it and potentially any life at all. The word that sicks out to me here is majority.
The one thing that we’ve always known growing up is that nothing lasts forever. When we’re kids we’re told this in reference to toys we like which break or perhaps friends who drift apart.
As we get older we realise this applies to our lives and the lives of people we love, who we thought would always be there.
But not until recently did I think that this could apply to the universe.
I hadn’t put much thought into the Earth and the length of time it would exist. Of course we know about recycling and climate change however, in terms of the Earth actually existing, I just assumed it would always be.
For my lifetime, sure.
But if the majority of time in the universe is without life, and we’re just now in its infancy, it got me thinking – what does that say about our lives on Earth?
I was discussing some of this with a friend and she said that it makes her feel almost relieved that the universe is so big and us so small. I said that makes us feel so insignificant and she said that can be a good thing.
To be honest she isn’t wrong. But watching these, it always hits home how little time there is in the grand scheme of things. It makes me want to do more, see more, experience more.
It scares me, it saddens me but it also makes me think and put things into a new perspective.
