Understanding the infinite with a finite mind.
One dark night, drive out into the middle of nowhere, turn off all the lights, and look up into the universe. As you stare out into a frontier beyond your imagination, realize that there is nothing between you and the vast blackness except a thin layer of air, held in place by a gravitational force that we still don’t understand.
And what you see is nothing.
You see less than one millionth of one percent of all that is out there. There’s so much to see, so many places to go, that a thousand lifetimes wouldn’t even scratch the surface. Then there’s possibly things we can’t see, and times that we cannot access. What was before the universe, what comes after, what is outside the universe, what is inside the atom?
How can you take it all in, and make sense of it all?
We can’t because it’s just too much. Trying to understand space, let alone time, with our limited minds is impossible, yet we try to find out more and more each day. We pile guess upon conjecture, theory upon supposition, and feel like we have a grasp on what ‘reality’ means. We live our lives in ignorance of what is possible, because we believe we understand enough to get by.
How much are we missing out on, how much further do we have to go?
If for one day, you could give up all your presupposed judgments, and instead see the world with unencumbered eyes, how would your life be changed?
For truly there is the infinite all around us, but we do not have infinite time in this form. So we sacrifice our wonder of all that we could see for the day to day survival of monotony, never feeling the weight of the sacrifice because we know not all that we give up.
This is life, this is reality, yet we alone have the responsibility to decide how we will meet the infinite. If you look, truly look, you can live in a state of profound wonder, gratitude and amazement. Even on your worst day, there are so many marvels around us, when we stop understanding, and see every miracle for what it truly is.
Don’t get lost in the everyday, for that is the illusion that robs you of all that you see. Nothing is everyday – everyday is incredible.
Life is amazing.
Do you feel it?
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings