There are 10 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Each of them approximately 100,000 light years across, containing around 100 billion stars. Around each of those stars are planets, on which life could possibly exist, but possibly could not. The light from those stars bounces around the void of space for thousands of years, some of it being absorbed, some of it moving on. Some of it reaches this galaxy, this solar system. Some of it reaches this planet, and this country. Some of it reaches you as you look into the night sky and you understand the vast scale of the cosmos. You understand just how small you are, how insignificant, how ineffectual in the face of infinity.
In all of time, humanity is a tiny blip. We have existed for 200 thousand years. The universe has existed for 14 billion years. In the eyes of time, we are nothing more than ants. We will all be squashed under its heel one day and it won't care. The universe won't care. There will be no one around to remember earth and the humans. Everything you do, even if you change the world, will be eroded away by the sands of time. Every great and terrible thing done by every person on the planet is, in the end, a shout into the void, and sound can't travel in space.
The inescapable reality of our temporal existance is daunting, as it should be. Nobody wants to be told that they don't matter. But, there is so much meaning to be found in our laughably short stay on this plane. In our puposelessness, we find purpose.
We all are shouting toward an uncaring sky but other people can hear us. We have ears, which is more than can be said for most of the cosmos. We can listen. We can value people because they are here. We know that we are all flying toward the inevitable, but we are all on the same metaphorical airplane. We are together in this bizzare ride we call life.
Like fireworks, we burn short but bright, and if we are only seen by each other, so be it. We will all explode and fade into nothingness, but for a few short seconds, one short life, we light up the darkness around us and can be called truly beautiful.
The only shame to be found in the great fireworks display of life is to turn away and say it isn't important. We are not the void. It is true that we are spinning through an endless universe that doesn't seem to care, but we are not that universe. We are seperate, and by seperating ourselves we embrace our ephemerality and we embrace each other. We laugh in the face of time and say "If you won't care about us, I will."
To the universe, none of us mean anything. That is why we have to value each other. If we don't, none of us will have had any value at all.
