“Human beings, born ultimately of the stars and now for a while inhabiting a world called Earth, have begun their long voyage home.”
I never really understood why, when I was growing up, my dad always had the book Cosmos in his hand. It was like his default book, I suppose. Much like what Kerouac’s On the Road is to me now. I knew about my dad’s fascination for science, but I never really took time to even ask him why. Although I can clearly remember sometime during the late 1980s, he was saying something about watching this thing called supernova. We were supposed to see some luminous glow in the sky brought about by the death of a star. The only death star I knew that time was the Galactic Empire’s ultimate weapon, also known as the Emperor’s and Darth Vader’s special project. But just as the human race strives to seek and discover its complex beginnings, such is my attempt to understand the things I missed out on when I was younger. Simple question such as, “why did my dad even like the book so much?” And nineteen years later it hit me. Maybe it's time I get to read it and realize what he knew.
“There are some hundred billion galaxies, each with, on the average, a hundred billion stars, 1011 x 1011 = 1022, ten billion trillion. In the face of such overpowering numbers, what is the likelihood that only one ordinary star, the Sun, is accompanied by an inhabited planet? Why should we, tucked away in some forgotten corner of the Cosmos, be so fortunate? To me, it seems far more likely that the universe is brimming over with life. But we humans do not yet know.”If there are no other life forms existing in the entire cosmos, then it is indeed an awful waste of space. And if this doesn't humble you, then I don't know what will.
And quite similar to the vastness of this space just right above us, certain things, between immensity and eternity are just beyond ordinary human understanding. Sagan explains things in relation to human existence. There’s just something so noble about the effort to make people understand and appreciate that there is a bigger world other than ours, a world so breathtakingly spectacular, its size so infinite, and its dynamics so astoundingly mind-blowing, volatile and predictable at the same time.
I now know that we’re not meant to understand everything and answer all our questions. A single lifetime would not be enough to discover such a vast subject. A lot of other things are reserved for all the other ages to uncover. Otherwise, there would be no purpose to wonder, nothing left for every age to marvel at. Although if there’s one thing to remember, we should always hit that nerve that connects to our sense of curiosity and awe.
And if my life, together with all the peculiarities that go along with it is my own cosmos, then I’m a trillion light years away from understanding it. And that remains to be my own personal voyage.
