Pastiche
The idea that mankind is the universe does not appeal to me. It never has. Few take it upon themselves to ponder on our insignificance in the grandest scheme, and perhaps they should not. As a man who nearly a century ago sat alone in Providence and wrote tales far ahead of their time once said, "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." Yet I think once in every being's lifetime it finds itself delving into the deep black of the abyss that surrounds us, and being starved of oxygen for a short time leaves them a tad madder. Yet madness is subjective, and a cousin of wisdom.
The most recent time I've felt the smallness of humanity was last spring. The heat of the subtropical Floridian day had been replaced with the coolness of the ocean breeze at night, and the sand was cold and damp underfoot. I find the sky over the ocean shows the constellations more brilliantly than most places on earth, yet tonight Orion did not tower over us as he did on other occasions. The sky was a ceiling of black pitch out over the surf, a black veil edged with a crown of stars over the land. I could feel the electricity behind the thunderheads in my bones. Smell the rain in the cool sea air. Our flashlights combed the beach as we played mortal games, chasing smaller creatures as they darted out of their burrows. Until I heard the distant rumble of thunder. Leviathan had awoken. At first the lightning was only visible from the corner of my eye. I turned too slow; my eyes had been too focused on the sand to look so quickly to the sky.
Yet when I finally met the distant storm as it raged far out over the ocean, all I could do was slowly sit and watch it in its untamed madness, in its chaotic power. I waved the others away, and they continued down the beach, leaving me with the thunder and the roll of the surf. The storm heads formed a cathedral, towering spires and intricate carvings that hedged the sky, only visible in the bright flashes of lightning that snaked from cloud to cloud, leaping like living things. Black shadows became night lights over the disturbed gulf. Then thunder would rumble, seemingly spilling across the sky and surrounding me where I sat. I might have watched for an hour, or maybe only minutes. Never has the earth made me feel so small as it did then.
Yet even our planet is small and insignificant, with its storms and its oceans. At least six sextillion planets exist in our known universe. Fifty million habitable zones exist within the Milky Way. Other stars could engulf every planet in our solar system without feeling full, and no funeral dirge will play for our Sol when it finally burns out. We are all so very small in the eyes of the universe. You could see this as something to fear, something that gives one nothing but anxiety and reveals life and your goals to be pointless. Yet why bother? I, for one, choose to see it as a comfort. It is a warm blanket that engulfs a sleeping child. The walls of the womb. The universe goes on without us.
The most recent time I've felt the smallness of humanity was last spring. The heat of the subtropical Floridian day had been replaced with the coolness of the ocean breeze at night, and the sand was cold and damp underfoot. I find the sky over the ocean shows the constellations more brilliantly than most places on earth, yet tonight Orion did not tower over us as he did on other occasions. The sky was a ceiling of black pitch out over the surf, a black veil edged with a crown of stars over the land. I could feel the electricity behind the thunderheads in my bones. Smell the rain in the cool sea air. Our flashlights combed the beach as we played mortal games, chasing smaller creatures as they darted out of their burrows. Until I heard the distant rumble of thunder. Leviathan had awoken. At first the lightning was only visible from the corner of my eye. I turned too slow; my eyes had been too focused on the sand to look so quickly to the sky.
Yet when I finally met the distant storm as it raged far out over the ocean, all I could do was slowly sit and watch it in its untamed madness, in its chaotic power. I waved the others away, and they continued down the beach, leaving me with the thunder and the roll of the surf. The storm heads formed a cathedral, towering spires and intricate carvings that hedged the sky, only visible in the bright flashes of lightning that snaked from cloud to cloud, leaping like living things. Black shadows became night lights over the disturbed gulf. Then thunder would rumble, seemingly spilling across the sky and surrounding me where I sat. I might have watched for an hour, or maybe only minutes. Never has the earth made me feel so small as it did then.
Yet even our planet is small and insignificant, with its storms and its oceans. At least six sextillion planets exist in our known universe. Fifty million habitable zones exist within the Milky Way. Other stars could engulf every planet in our solar system without feeling full, and no funeral dirge will play for our Sol when it finally burns out. We are all so very small in the eyes of the universe. You could see this as something to fear, something that gives one nothing but anxiety and reveals life and your goals to be pointless. Yet why bother? I, for one, choose to see it as a comfort. It is a warm blanket that engulfs a sleeping child. The walls of the womb. The universe goes on without us.