A Thought Experiment to Gain Perspective

Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter. Marcus Aurelius Meditations, book XII. 167 AD 

Let's talk scale. Assume that the atom is the smallest thing in our body; it most certainly is not, but amuse me for the sake of this thought experiment. A human body is made up of millions of those tiny little things. So think about how small one of those are in relation to your body. Next imagine your body in relation to the size of your house. At this point, you should seem a bit smaller. Now think of your body in relation to the town in which you live. Your body as it compares to the country you are in.  At this point, you are past the line of insignificance. Your body in relation to the entire Earth.

An aside must be made from the thought experiment for a brief moment. The movement of the celestial bodies in our Universe are controlled by the natural force of gravity. The thing that causes gravity is the shear mass of the celestial bodies in our Universe.

Continuing the thought experiment. The Sun is so much larger than Earth and the rest of the planets in our solar system that the gravitational pull from the sun locks them into orbit around it. With that in mind, consider that there are black holes at the center of every galaxy and their mass is so unfathomably large that stars, both larger and smaller than our Sun, are locked into orbit around them. This is precisely what holds a galaxy together. Scientists are recently reporting that these black holes are actually in rotation around even larger super-massive black holes. Beyond that, I venture to speculate that upon further exploration scientists of the future will discover that those super-massive black holes are indeed in rotation around even larger bodies whose existence we are oblivious to at this point.

Go back to the beginning of the experiment and try to wrap your head around how big one atom in our human bodies is compared to a super-massive black hole. It is literally unfathomably large. We cannot begin to understand how large they truly are.

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There is a lesson to be learned within this experiment. The pearl of wisdom that can be found upon reflection is our true insignificance in the grand scheme of this Universe. We humans are no more important to the functioning of this Universe than a single atom is to our human body. In fact, we are many times less important than a single atom. For many people, this is very sad news. They believe that insignificance translates into meaninglessness. In my opinion, that could not be farther from the truth. I believe we can use this information to shake off the seriousness with which many people live this life. It is just way too short and ultimately insignificant to waste away by being caught up with small, silly things. One of the great tradgedies of this existence is when a person goes through their entire life fooling themselves into thinking that it all matters. This leads to them carrying on as if everything has to be serious. The most liberating lesson to be learned from this experiment is that we truly are insignificant, so it is very foolish to be serious all of the time and miss out on having fun. Happiness can only be experienced a second at a time, so the sensible thing to do is stop wasting those seconds on meaningless serious repetition.

As for meaning, one of the most fantastically beautiful and optimistic results of this experiment is the realization that each and every one of us can choose and ultimately craft the meaning behind our lives. Whatever you want the meaning of your life to be, it can be. All it takes is choosing that and then carrying on to pursue it with determination and tenacity. I hope this news puts a smile on your face like the one it puts on mine. Now, go. Go create your own reality!