The relevance and similarities and metaphors of the universe intrigue me.
I am reading the "Theory of Time" by Stephen Hawkins.
Driving to work this morning, I was lost in the thought of relativity and time.
The older I get, the more time that I have lived, the more I try to learn, not just from the lessons in the moment, but the lessons over time... by observing people, decisions, knowledge accumulated over time.
Specifically, I was listening to the genius astronomers, philosophers, scientists... (there was a time when a few where all of these...) and thinking, the amount of knowledge we have today is so amazingly vast compared to ANY other time in the history of the universe. (At least from the human perspective), and yet, we suffer from the same human dynamics that have plagued civilization since its very start; ignorance, greed, arrogance, righteousness, insecurity.
In the entire history of the Universe (6 billion years), how long has we existed as human beings? That is arguable. Society seems to have existed since the last ice age about 10,000 years ago... How long have we known that the earth was NOT the center of the universe?
I am amused by the similarity of the progression of knowledge.
When we are young, the world revolves around us.
We struggle to understand the needs of others and the laws that govern science and society.
As we learn, we tend to see ourselves as the "center of the universe", exactly like scientists first assumed that the sun rotated around the earth. WE were the center of all existence.
As we continue to learn, we realize that the earth actually rotates around the sun... and more recently we've learned that our Sun actually rotates around other things, and we float around with some predetermined path set by the Milky Way... and the Milky Way is part of a larger cluster...
The universe is something I struggle to think about, because getting my arms and mind around the "IS" overwhelms me.
As I get older, I am getting more comfortable with my own ignorance, and with the unknown.
Even though I don't understand it, I hear that the universe is ever expanding and that there are an infinite number of stars and galaxies.
Stop and take that in for just a moment.
Our human nature steps toward that edge of ignorance and then wants to recenter itself around us as the center of the universe. It makes taking the next step in our own lives easier, more certain, more understood.
I read today that if the universe is indeed infinite with an infinite number of stars, then it has no center... every star in the universe is its own center.
I smiled... maybe we are the center of the universe.
At least in our own minds.
The more we learn, the more we realize we don't know.
The more I learn, the more I realize I don't need to know it all.
I just need to keep understanding and appreciating that I am not the center of the universe.
I need to keep getting more comfortable with the vastness of knowledge that exists and is ever expanding, and my own ignorance.
And then, I need to take my own insignificance
and my own ignorance...
and continue to step into the next moment...
grateful
mindful
humble...
and then from that "IS"...
once again
engage in our "WANT"...
and
in harmony,
Nestor