Universe Shmuniverse

The Universe is not sending you a message. It’s not looking out for you. It’s not trying to make things okay for you.

If you’re so arrogant to think that the universe cares more about your situation than the mom who has cancer, or the baby that’s dying, or the toddler starving to death, then you’re an arrogant fuck that has no idea of the world around you. 

The universe does not care about you. You come, you go. For some weird reason, you’re aware of it. You won an interstellar lottery living in a 1st or 2nd world country. Good for you.

All you are doing is assigning meaning to where there is none. That’s it. No thing is talking to you. No one is trying to send you a message. You think Jesus only cares about white people.

Now get off your high horse and recognize where you stand. You stand on a piece of silica or carbon. An element which ultimately floats on a ball of magma. Which ultimately is forced to the core of a ball that just happens to be in a good place in space, around a just right star.

Way to go, Goldilocks. That bear’s gonna eat the meat off your bones.

New Map of Universe

New Map of Universe

“The universe is 13.8 billion years old, about 100 million years older than previously thought…”

Heard from one of the scientists: “This is so embarrassing. We were so off. I know it’s only going to get worse as our equipment keeps getting better.”

Thank you for your help

For every help ticket we submit at work we receive a request for feedback when it’s complete. I know these people work incredibly hard at what I’m sure is a tedious and painful job, so I try to liven things up for them. This was today’s…

Stephanie,

Thank you for your prompt attention to my problem and ensuring this client’s purchase went out today.

As I read your email letting me know everything was covered, I rolled back (I sit on one of those balls, not a chair, so if I leaned back I would fall, unless I was doing abdominal exercises [which I should be doing more of anyway]) and pondered on truth and the meaning of life. In my pondering, I recalled an article I read yesterday about the possible evidence of multiple universes. It said something along the lines of bruises on the spectrum where scientists “see” the big bang.

Many years ago when I was crossing the Atlantic on the USS John F. Kennedy, I went outside in the middle of the night to look at the stars. It was dark. Really dark. The Milky Way looked like a glass of milk was spilled across the sky, hence the name I’m sure. Trepidly I lied down on the catwalk fearing I would plummet into the ocean 70′ below to be lost forever. I did not fall.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I saw stars spread out before me in a way I had never seen before, nor again since that night. I focused on one portion of the sky and my eyes absorbed more light from more and more stars until the dime-sized focal point overtook my field of vision. With a jolt, my hands clutched the railing at my side and the grating beneath me and I bolted upright for I feared I would plummet upward into the sky to be lost forever. Again, I did not fall… up.

I stayed upright after that afraid of the infinite expanse of creation and my infinite smallness.

Reading this article last night resurrected those same feelings. How small and insignificant can we be? I’m a religious man, but sometimes have a hard time believing that there’s any point to humanity’s existence and I question the sense of self-importance and the necessity of meaning we apply to things.

At the same time, this sense of doubt is muffled by the thought of why would we be a part of so much, and be aware of it, if there was not some greater purpose to life? Why would we be capable of such discovery if we were not able to explore it; if not now, then in the afterlife?

Then I flashed back to reality as I saw my manager staring at me. I’m sure he was wondering what I was doing as I intensely stared and typed at a work-related screen.

Back to my order…

In the midst of all this vastness and wonder, you’ve made sure a $1000 order shipped the same day so that I could get a little piece of that pie, and my client could have the product in time to build and gift to an employee before she left for vacation.

Life sure is funny, isn’t it?