Most everyone has had the experience of being outside at night and looking up to the stars and thinking "Compared to everything out there, I am so, so small." Perhaps this experience made you feel insignificant. Maybe when you learn that the Earth can fit into the sun about 1.3 million times, and the Sun can fit into a larger star Antares about 152 million times, and Antares is smaller than a quarter of a pixel when compared to VV Cephei (the largest star known) on the computer, you start to feel really small. Maybe you start to think that all your problems are so insignificant because you just saw the photo NASA released of "The Pale Blue Dot", or you realized that you're one of 107,602,707,791 people who have ever been born on planet Earth, you might begin to get settled into the mindset that your tiny, insignificant life and tiny problems and worries don't actually make any difference in the big scheme of things.
But this is just one way to think.
The way we think about the size of us compared to the size of the universe isn't actually comparative at all. Instead of feeling small and unimportant, try to settle into the mindset that you, dear friend, are part of the biggest and most amazing thing ever created. Van Gogh once said "I don't know anything with certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream." Instead of feeling like you're helplessly clinging to a ball of rock and soil hurtling through space with no method or reason, try to remember that you are here for a reason. You are the universe, and the universe is you. Another amazing tid-bit is that the entirety of space can fit inside the human eye and in relation head.
Person A: Can you fit the entire universe inside an egg?
Person B: Do you see that tree? And the moon? And all those stars and sky?
Person A: Yes...?
Person B: Then what makes you doubt for even a second that that universe cannot fit inside an egg if you can fit it all inside your little eyeball?
Sure, the literal universe and all it's bits and pieces cannot fit inside of the human eye, but the fact that our tiny heads can even begin to comprehend just how huge the universe is, is pretty amazing.
Many people who are in the first mindset, or the "Why do I matter?" mindset, actually create a paradox. Simply by thinking that you're so small and insignificant is actually pretty selfish. YOU are an amazing individual and everything you say or do matters, just as the person sitting next you matters, or that stranger with the nice smile matters. You are an individual, but you're also part of something much, much bigger than yourself. The universe. And if you think that you can just remove yourself from that and compare your life to the biggest thing in existence, you're a little nutty.
"Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all." -Van Gogh
Yours truly,
Kylie and Catherine
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