Humans. We like think that we know everything. That there is an answer that exists for every phenomenon that has and will occur. That the answer is so obvious of course we know it, we the apex species. Us who must be god-like in our ability to evolve, adapt, survive.
The universe is 13.8 billion years old. Earth is 4.543 billion years old. Modern Homo sapiens have existed just 200,000 years with only the last 6,000 being spent as civilizations. We as a species are tiny, in the timeline of just the planet, we are an insignificant portion, so far, nothing we've done can't be reclaimed by Earth when we are gone. Eventually we will be gone.
For now however, we exist. On this strange planet third from the sun in an outer arm of the Milky Way, we have found ourselves alive. It makes sense that we'd want to know how. How it is we came to be, how this planet in all of its dimensions works so that it can sustain us.
It is peculiar, I find, that we turn not to the earth or sky for answers about infinity; but to ourselves. We who have barely arrived, yet think we hold the key to all. It is within our own flawed and incomplete minds, we search for the answer of all.
Of course we do not frame our questions as such. We are not looking for the meaning of life, says humanity, just the cause of why this place is home to peculiar happenings. Why in places that are not heavily industrialized do strange things happen. Alaska, Bermuda, these triangles where existence seems to warp and things just vanish.
It is just a scientific phenomenon, we just want to know the cause. We look for the cause, we look and we look, up high and down low. Swearing, that it's just so we can know what happens there, to possibly stop it. To control it.
For years we have investigated, researched, and speculated, but no idea has yet come to fruition. It is for just this spot, we say, but do we mean it? Just this one thing, has the capacity to escalate, escalate, and escalate. Until we can no longer see what we are after, and name the search we have been on for so long.
Humanity uses, these searches to mask what used to be stated so clear. Like the philosophers of old. Who 6,000 years ago in the beginning of today asked what we ask as children but never adults. Why? How? What?
Why are we here?
How did it come to pass?
What is the purpose of all this?
Never do we answer these questions as a whole. No, we get sidetracked by the little things. The answers that crop up between our toes like dandelions in the grass. We think it is not important, but then look close, see the complexity, and sit to stare until the sun sets. No more, do we get dragged away however.
This is the world of science. Cause and effect. Where every problem has a solution. Where we must find the solution, or else not be as great as we believe.
I propose in a scientific theory, that, in some cases, we cannot find the answer. Some things are just too big, for humanity to know. Too big to comprehend, without losing that which makes us. Instead, return to the little things. To staring at the dandelion when the sun rises again, count the pedals, watch them turn white, blow them away, make a wish. Feel the breeze and live.
Some things are too big for us to know. Yeah, it hurts, but we have to let it go. Remember that compared to the world and universe we are so small, so why try to solve every triangle? Why not instead draw our own in the dirt. We as humans will leave little of a trace, but should even still enjoy the day. We may not have the answer, but we have our lives. And if maybe we just focus on the little things, someday we will be able to answer: Why? How? What? But for now, I think it is best to enjoy the sun.
