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Stand in front of the ocean alone at night. Look at the horizon. Look at the starry sky. And soak in the realization that you will never know or experience ever
by MauranKilom 6y ago
Stand in front of the ocean alone at night. Look at the horizon. Look at the starry sky. And soak in the realization that you will never know or experience everything. This world is way too big for our human brains. The vastness of the sea itself is already unimaginable. And once you look to the stars, you realize that you will never experience every cubic meter of the universe with the same intensity as the grains of sand beneath your feet.
This is probably the most gut-wrenching realization I ever had. I've gnawed on this for many a night. But it also leads to the fundamental question: What do you want to experience?
It's the choices we make and the options we decide against that define us. You have to choose. And the great part is: You can! It is entirely up to you to turn the brief and glorious period of "I'm alive" between two inconceivably long spans of "I'm not alive" into the best it can be. But that involves making choices against things.
- anonymouse71 6y agoYou describe perfectly the experience I had at one point many years ago. I don’t want to experience every cubic meter of the universe. And I lived my life for at least the past decade with the idea that I will chart my own path of what I want to experience and largely succeeded so far. But what I am after is fundamentally different than experiencing the whole universe as individual pieces. It’s more that I don’t want to be limited. I don’t want to go away because that takes away my choice. If I die at 90, I don’t get to see my great grandkids get married at 120. If I die at 120 I don’t get to fall in love at 150. That’s my problem. I don’t want to become the universe. I want to remain human or as close to it as possible and for death to not be an eventuality forced upon me. My dog is sentient. But she does not contemplate her end. I am cursed with it and it feels like the only way to beat it is to not die.
- MauranKilom 6y ago> It’s more that I don’t want to be limited. To me these are two sides of the same coin. If two of your distant grandchildren each get married at the same time, you won't get to see both. There are physical limits governing our lives. One of those involves mortality, but many others impose similarly restrictive limitations.
- anonymouse71 6y agoThey aren’t in the same category. You have a choice of which wedding to go to. It may be annoying but your ability to choose something isn’t taken away, you are forced to make a choice. If your life stretched infinitely mathematically, you could assume that you will experience everything at some point.