space is terrifying (pt. 3, the smallness of humanity)
Read pt. 2, Monsters in The Darkness.
When we gaze at the vastness of the cosmos, our humanity looks small and fragile by comparison. We are tiny, conscious flecks floating in an ocean of immense black nothingness.
The vast gulf between the scales of our lives and the universe is profoundly unsettling. Our recorded history, everything we’ve built and accomplished, is little more than a blip against deep time and the immense gulfs between stars.
When viewed from a cosmic scale, what we consider enduring monuments – the pyramids, the Great Wall of China – appear as ephemeral as mayfly wings. Our greatest languages will decay into gibberish, and all traces of human civilization will inevitably vanish into obscurity, forgotten by an uncaring universe within mere fractions of its lifespan.
The atoms that compose our bodies were formed in the crucible of long-dead stars and will one day disperse into space as those same stars die violent deaths. We will be torn and scattered into cosmic dust with everything we loved and created.
Space reminds us that for all our hope and meaning, we remain forgotten dust upon the cold winds of time.
