This past weekend my mom called me. We talked about the weather and what not and then she brought up my grandfather. My Grandfather has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for the last eight years and is at the point where he doesn’t really remember anyone. I haven’t seen him in two years, and in a way he is already dead. This started me thinking, Not so much about death or Alzheimer’s but my grandfather’s legacy.
I will remember him, but in a hundred years he will be lost to history. This eventually ballooned out to me thinking about the meaning of life. For me whenever I start to have problems in my life or I am suddenly aware of my own mortality I think about astronomy. I start to think about how small and insignificant my life is in the grand schema of the universe. There are an infinite number of planets and solar systems in this reality that we know, and my life isn’t even a drop in the bucket. My life isn’t even a drop in a ocean. My life isn’t even a molecule of a drop in an ocean. The universe was here before me and it’ll be here after me, and there is nothing I or anyone else can do to change that. We as humans all seek immortality in some form. Be it through our works, or our actions. We all want to go down in history for something. No one wants to die unremembered.
Everyone wants to leave their mark. For most people children are their way of passing down both their genes and their morals, but even that ultimately means nothing. All of human history has been insignificant to the universe. This could come off sounding nihilistic, but I find it liberating. It’s liberating to know that at the end of the day all that really matters is that you enjoy your life. Not what you accomplished or the legacy you leave behind, cause ultimately nothing. This is not to be taken as an excuse to go do whatever you want. Selfishness more often than naught leads to a shallow hollow life, while selfless actions tend to be far more satisfying. The point of this is that we all need to stop worrying, stop hating, and stop fighting. You can’t change anything. Just live your life to the best of your ability and help others do the same. Whatever happens happens.
“So the next time when you're feeling very small and insecure, just remember how amazingly unlikely is your birth”- Monty Python
we are constantly emitting heat energy into the universe, from the day we are born, to the day we die. that energy dissipates throughout the universe and interacts with everything and everyone. that is our legacy. and when we die, our energy becomes the universes again.
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