Small, insignificant "me" & What's "out there"

It’s funny how a lot of people feel small and insignificant when they look to the stars and ponder the immense vastness of the universe. Yes, there are billions upon billions upon billions upon gazillions upon billions celestial bodies ”out there” that can make you feel that the size of the universe is ungraspable and that you are just, I don’t know, a meaningless amoeba that happened to be born ”into” it. Yes, it is true that you are meaningless, and nothing short of ABSOLUTELY #ING MEANINGLESS. But you are meaningless in the same sense that a flower is meaningless. A flower just grows without any intellectual intention behind it: it just grows ”by itself”, just like your body grows by itself and just like your heart beats by itself. What could possibly be the meaning of your heartbeat? And just as a flower grows ”out of” the earth, you didn’t come ”INTO” the universe as some kind of ”soul” controlling some sort of ”biological vehicle” (the body), nope, you also came OUT OF the universe, or was it that the universe came out of you? Or that the universe is COMING out of you? Or perhaps nothing really came out of anything? Perhaps ”the inside” and ”the outside” is really the same? They are of course extremely different explicitly, but every ”inside” implies an ”outside” and vice versa, just like darkness implies light and cold implies heat. There wouldn’t be any light without darkness.


In exactly the same way, those billions upon billions upon billions upon gazillions upon billions celestial bodies ”out there” implies, drumroll, YOU!!! Without you to observe them, they wouldn’t and couldn’t possibly be ”out there”. In the same sense that ”inside” implies ”outside”, the universe (the macrocosm) implies YOU (the microcosm). When you’ll ”die”, the macrocosm will ”die” with you - you’ll ”die” together because you are the same. Without you there wouldn’t be any universe, and without a universe there wouldn’t be any ”you”.

What we call ”life” has absolutely no meaning. But flowers are bloody beautiful and they smell good, too. Well, at least most of them... 



a reply to: Funafuti

True.

But in the same vein of philosophical pondering might the flower sense these things as well? Might you be destroying a universe everytime you pick one because you destroy the flower's perception of it's own existence?

Might every creature and organism have a different perception of reality and therfore exist in different universes that die along with them when their perceptions cease to be?

Hmmmm.

BBQ.

You must try to find the significance in everything, that is part of the mystery we call life. But none of this means anything so carry on

Great post. We are the universe experiencing itself.

The universe is made of cycles: cycle of the seasons, revolution of the Earth around the sun, the sun's revolution around the Milky Way, the Milky Way's revolution around the galactic cluster, etc.

The thing about cycles is that the end of one step is only the beginning of the next and a cycle will always eventually lead back to its beginning just as Spring leads to Summer and Summer leads to Fall and Fall leads to Winter and Winter leads yet again to Spring.

We are the universe and the universe is within us (kingdom of God is within). Since we are the universe that must mean this life is only one cycle among an infinite loop. When we die it is only the beginning off another cycle, we are born again with a fresh perspective and clean slate. Just as the death of Winter leads to the birth of Spring, the death off our bodies lead to a new body through reincarnation.

The meaning of life is not meaningless though, the meaning of life is to find yourself.

S&F

a reply to: OrphanApology


It's impossible to know. There is only one consciousness to experience and that is one's "own".

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Well written! I would say that the meaning of life is really arbitrary, though. It becomes what we make it. But "life" is not meaningful in a semantic way. "Life" doesn't point to anything else than itself. And I agree that the most important thing (the thing that yields the most happiness and well-being) is to find oneself, but as for example Zen-buddhism teaches, there is really no one to be found, so it's problematic to set out on a quest to trying to find yourself because there is truly no self that can find any self. It's like trying to taste the tip of one's tongue. One simply has to stop searching, and where there's nothing to be found, there is the "hidden" treasure.

a reply to: Funafuti

Fun

How well I know this insignificance you speak of. I love the way humans are now mapping the known universe. All those pictures and maps that show us just how bigggggg this place really is. And even then, these new maps admittedly only map things as far as our tools will allow us to see. From as much as we can see, I just wonder how much further and further it continues to be. It is daunting.

And as far as it having any meaning, well, there you have it I guess. I find no evident road signs, no Burma Shave messages along any of the highways and byways of outer space. No,"Oh hello humans. Whatcha doing peeking out here at all the rest that's going on. See? Not much huh?"

And then we can look down, rather than up, and we find that it just keeps going down and down and down and what do we find? Any meaning there? Any proclamations of what it is all about? Ah, no, not really.

However.

Here, about half way between all that is "out" from here and all that is "in" from here, and who know, maybe not even half way between cuz who knows where we are if we cannot see either end of the spectrum, what do we find?

Us.

And for some crazy reason, that is if we can find a reason, isn't this meaning we are hedging around the reason, isn't it strange that some how, some way, in the midst of all this seemingly meaninglessness we find one small aspect of it all that has come around to asking about meaning.? What kind of out of touch wildness might we be that even this concept of meaning occurs to us in the first place. Not only that but we seem to place so much importance on it.

Now, I am not about to start proclaiming what that meaning might be. I like to leave that to all the others who seem to think that they have the lowdown on it. But just for the fact, and I always use that word lightly, for the fact that we do search for meaning suggests to me, that there is meaning. And from that I guess we can all search for it in our own ways if we want, or not if we do not feel that pull. For me, I just gotta go with there is meaning behind it all. And I feel warm and happy for it, even if that is all it is.

Thanks for your post Fun. Hope you find what you think might not be there. I have, but of course I may just be delusional.

a reply to: Funafuti

I understand what you are trying to say, but your concept of "ME," overshadows a true perspective. Remove yourself from the scene (death) and the rest remains as before, largely undisturbed.

a reply to: Aliensun


Which "true perspective" do you mean? I didn't quite get it (time's getting late in Sweden)

a reply to: Funafuti

Well in mathematics and physics, the so-called butterfly effect explains something you mentioned.

a reply to: Funafuti

It was only not long ago that I had been reading online The Conspiracy Against the Human Race written by Thomas Liggoti which shares similar sentiments of your OP.

This is the great lesson the depressive learns: Nothing in the world is inherently compelling. Whatever may be really "out there" cannot project it self as an affective experience.

One look at human existence is proof enough that our species will not be released from the stranglehold of emotionalism that anchors it to hallucinations.