Not all that long ago your grandparents were your age. And not that long before that they were just children, with no concept of you even existing. The world around them was the newest it had ever been. They probably looked back at their own grandparents as ancient reminders of a simpler time. As with anything, what was once new is now considered a relic. Once again today's generation sees what they've created as the best there's ever been. Now I'm not trying to take away from the accomplishments of those who have put their hard work into making today the best it can be. Still, if you think about it we've only really been "technologically advanced" for a little over a hundred years. While that may be a long time in the span of our individual lives, it's a little more than a blink in the span of our species existence. Really we've only just scratched the surface of what we could accomplish.
There was a time when a computer that fit in your pocket was something you'd see in a science fiction movie. I wonder if the people who dreamed up that idea knew what was coming or if the people who watched those movies decided they'd do whatever it took to make it a reality. Today we have our own science fiction, some of which is slowly becoming actual science, while some of it only leads to other ideas. Whatever happens there will come a time when the most advanced thinking will become obsolete. It's sometimes hard to not think that what we do today is futile considering how tomorrow it will seem like such an old concept. As we progress forward our current notions are changed and sometimes revealed to be completely incorrect. We're only going on what we know at the time, so it stands to reason that the more we know the more we realize just how much we don't know. That may be the only constant in this universe. Some people would like to believe that eventually we'll reach a point of complete understanding, but it seems next to impossible given how big and ancient everything is. Maybe we're not supposed to know it all. Maybe we're always supposed to learn so that we know what's next for us to learn.
The world was old when you were young. Sometimes it's hard for me to really get my head around that fact. Fourteen billion years is just a number and I know that it's really big. Still the only way I can really start to understand it is if I went outside and considered each grain of sand as a year. In order to come close to having all the sand I need to show how old the universe is, I would have a desert. Considering how short our time is it's not surprising to feel a little insignificant when thinking about how only in the last third of known existence did our planet even exist. What will it be like when twice that much time has passed again? Will we all just be some galactic afterthought? Maybe all that means is that since our duration in this world is so limited that everything we do matters. Some might argue the opposite, that we're just a blip in time. Our galaxy isn't in a good neighborhood. It's out in the middle of nowhere compared to what we know is out there. If that's the case then what does it matter what we do because in the grand scheme of things we'll just be forgotten or lost. That's a bit of a hopeless outlook on life. Maybe the universe won't notice when we're gone, but we'll notice while we're here. Today we're here and we're alive. Tomorrow we may go back to being space dust floating out in the abyss, but that shouldn't stop us from screaming to the heavens "We are here and we matter!", even if we're the only ones who hear. If this is all going to be long forgotten then there is nothing to lose in trying to accomplish everything while we're here.
