The pale blue dot

That is what we call earth, our home for about 80 odd years if we are lucky enough to live that long. That pale blue dot is so small in comparison to the size of the universe.  Or leave alone the universe, in comparison to our galaxy that even if it did not exist, it won’t matter to the universe or the galaxy. A small astronomical or earthly event is all that is required to remove the pale blue dot from the picture frame of the universe; it’s only a matter of time. Astronauts who have been lucky enough to see this pale blue dot have told on returning that on a wider context all the troubles and preoccupations which seemed so important earlier now seem to be meaningless.

The more we understand the grandeur of the universe the more we are realizing our pointless and trivial existence. The creation of life on earth is millions of years old after millions of year’s effort to create it. We are the latest creation endowed with the gift of intelligence.

Through our limited knowledge we don’t even know whether we are the only life bearing planet or not. If we are not the unique ones then we are just like the others, just a biologically lucky group of species. If we are the only ones then we are unique but does that uniqueness really matter, it can be just accidental also. It makes us special but does that make us more valuable because there is no one else to judge our value other than ourselves. It sounds similar to our ego- we give value to ourselves.

This sense of value overflows into the sense of power, power over none other than us. The outcome of this overflow of power is known to us, history is riddled with blood coming out from injuries caused by arrows to bullets.

If we cut off the human life on this earth then the earth and life as it is would be the same, living in its natural habitat. All the inventions of humans to give a new shape to this earth, does it serve any grand purpose. Is the earth or our galaxy or the universe even bothered about these inventions? Or is it just a futile attempt to impress our value and power on something that is not remotely interested in it.

So should we stop doing what we are doing as we are so small in the grander scale of time and space? All the people who were instrumental in shaping our human history, in a better or worse way, did it serve any purpose?

The answer depends on what outlook you have. If we consider all the inventions and discoveries we have made to make our life easier, to enhance our knowledge then surely we are serving the purpose of intelligent life which we have been bestowed upon. We have created a mental framework as to what is good for us and bad for us and are continuously striving to improve ourselves. Though none of it really matters on a grander timeframe of eons and epochs but it surely matters in the lifetime scale of a human. We have tried to create a purpose for ourselves.

Our focus and priorities are based on our lifetime. But if we add a few more lifetimes then the perspective change. 80 years ago the world was fighting the Second World War and thought that after the defeat of the Germans the world would be a better place. 200 years ago the British were dominating the world through there colonies, it was said that the sun never sets in the British Empire. 500 years ago the Muslims were ruling India and it seemed that it would never end. A 1000 year ago America which was a country of aboriginals is now the strongest power in the world. So events which were so profound in its time lose its essence in the maze of history. People who were once comfortable without electricity, if brought back to life now will not be able to live without it.

Whatever we considered valued have now changed with time, over a couple of lifetimes. But with our limited physical timeline we consider what we are doing as a collective human effort as the most important thing in history. But all things ultimately become footnotes in history books. I have only talked about a 1000 years, if we take further leaps back in history then human beings are a blip.

All our values, purpose and power is limited to this earth. We a part and parcel of this nature, we cannot antagonize the nature and hope to survive. Nature is all powerful and has the capability to bring humans to its knees in days. As long as our roads do not cross each other we will survive and flourish. Once we start considering ourselves supreme beings then that would be the beginning of the end of human race. The sad part is that we are very near to that cross section of roads.

For a small minority what mankind is doing is of little importance because they know that everything done by it is impermanent in nature. They have created their own values and purpose where all material gains are immaterial to them. They believe in the grander scale of events. So are these people wrong. I won’t say them to be wrong either.

The above picture gives a contradictory perspective towards life on 'earth' time scale. We are here for only 2 seconds out of 12 hours and we have left a mark for ourselves for only 1/10th of a second. Within this fraction of a second we have done some amazing things as well as pretty destructive things for this planet.

That is the beauty of human life, nothing is absolute right or wrong. It is we who are sitting on the steering wheel and driving the car of life. The road is laid out in front of us by our mind and we are free to drive on whichever road we wish. We have the liberty to feel ourselves as the king of earth in our short lifespan or consider this life as an illusion ready to be replaced by another illusion.

But the fact which also cannot be ignored is that we are writing history on the sands of time sitting on the shores of a rising sea.