The universe does not care about me, but I care about it.
It may not even know that I exist- after all, I'm just one more of over 7 billion Homo Sapiens on a mid-sized planet in a middling solar system on the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, which is just one of innumerable spiral galaxies. I am smaller than an atom to the universe. Even my own atoms are nothing special. I am not made of dark matter or dark energy. I am made of baryonic matter, which is only 5% of the energy in the universe. All matter translates to energy, but mine, my light is infinitesimal compared to the vastness of the void, for even the stars can not bridge the gap, the leap into time/space, that entropy entails. They, too, must die in their own time. They burn much brighter than I ever will. All of the atoms in my body were forged in them.
I am tiny. I face a future almost identical to any other member of my species and we all face it alone. No one else can make the tiny variations from the universal path that I will take. I must stare into the void, into the face of a universe that does not care about me. I must use my knowledge: a pittance to some, a hoard to others, and build a bridge, I must care, because the universe does not, because if I don't use my tiny vantage point, then it'll be like I never existed. Some days, I think that would be a good thing.
And yet, I care. I want to explore my corner of the universe. I want to understand the purpose and function of my planet's countless lifeforms. I want to delve into the lives of bacteria and the inner working of cells and viruses. I want to know the purpose and structure of the proteins that support them. Maybe, in doing this, I will find my own.
The universe is a wonderful place, full of danger and life. It is bound by laws that can only be broken by imagination. It is not God. It simply is. I love it, and I hate it. But how can you hate the only thing you and everything else has ever and, will ever, know? I guess it's not hate, but puzzlement and frustration and wonder.
I care about the universe, although it can never love me back.
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midnight thoughts
RandomThis is basically what I think about when I lay in bed at night.
