What we do in this life that we have matters. It has consequence, importance. It matters because if we didn’t exist, nothing would matter.
It sounds egotistical. It sounds like I want to go back to a world where the center of the universe was earth and the humans on it. But, before dismissing the idea in these ways let’s imagine a universe with no humans.
It’s really difficult. In an ironic twist, it’s impossible for us to imagine not existing, because we are always there viewing this universe with no people, but luckily we can grasp it a little.
The universe existed for a very long time before we developed our current sense of consciousness. I believe the number is approximately 12 billion years, and we have only been around for the last 50 to 20 thousand years.
The funny thing is, if you truly put your mind to the task, you will see that that amount of time could have happened in the blink of an eye. The sun rose and set, plants grew and died, and isotopes decayed, but with no one there to experience it, it didn’t matter.
If you don’t believe me, imagine a world with no conscious beings ever. There would be a big bang, quantum fluctuations would cause matter to coalesce into planets, gravity would cause planets to form galaxies, and then whatever happens at the end of a universe would happen.
The feeling of a “long time” is only long if someone is experiencing it.
I can hear the alien fanatics complaining about this already, but you are missing the point. I didn’t say we are the only ones who make things matter, in fact it’s not us, but consciousness in general. (Technically the universe could have more than one center because it has no edges.)
Without something that has a real idea of time going by, things that take a long time to happen happen in the blink of an eye, even faster, so fast it’s as if they didn’t even happen. We make time, and the universe that is entangled in it, matter.
But, before you go jumping off the couch and proclaiming humanity the center of the universe, take a sober second thought. Be humbled. If we matter, then our actions matter, what we do in this life matters. And, since you or I are not the only conscious ones, other people matter.
Not to put the weight of the universe on your shoulders, but that is what we call responsibility.
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