AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS

Is It Just Me?

I made a couple of blunders the last time I wrote about something other than politics; I’ll try to avoid similar pitfalls with this post. I’m not sure I’ll adequately express what’s been on my mind these days, but I feel compelled to give it a shot.

I was a fortunate child in so many ways, not the least of which was having parents who exposed me to new ideas and who encouraged me to think for myself rather than letting others think for me. I wish I knew how many times that has gotten me in trouble with friends and family (I lost at least a couple of girlfriends who said “you think too much”), but I cannot imagine viewing the world in any other way.

The problem with spending life trying to understand the world is that the things society decides are important tend to just drive me absolutely crazy. Let me try to explain.

Here are some things we know about the universe because of some really smart people:

• Our universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old and is constantly expanding. It is currently approximately 92 billion lightyears (or 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles: 500 sextillion miles) in diameter. What is outside that border or, stated differently, into what is the universe expanding? Jello (it’s as good a guess as any).

• There are approximately 70 thousand million million million stars visible from Earth using a telescope. Galaxies contain between ten million and one trillion stars. Scientists estimate that the universe contains at least two trillion galaxies. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way (every time I type that I crave chocolate) contains one hundred thousand million stars.

• Humans now know that black holes have existed since the universe was formed, and new ones are formed when massive stars expend all their energy and collapse on themselves. Black holes are so powerful that nothing, even light, can escape their gravitational pull. At the center of the Milky Way galaxy is Sagittarius A, a supermassive black hole that has about four million times more mass than our Sun. Black holes are possibly the most fascinating thing in the universe and are at the center of most galaxies.

• We can only see about 4% of the universe because about 22% is comprised of dark matter and 74% of dark energy.

Trying to comprehend even a fraction of this just takes away my breath, and there are enough similar breakthroughs to fill volumes. But what about other scientific discoveries?

Bear with me…I’m getting to the point!

Humans have also discovered or invented electricity, penicillin, relativity, DNA, x-rays and MRIs, the internet, spaceflight, COVID-19 and other vaccines, television, gravitational waves, cell phones, cancer treatments (there are currently about 18 million American cancer survivors), pocket knives, rumble strips on the sides of highways, corrective lenses, comfortable shoes, mathematics, linguistics, shatter-proof glass, hair dye (mine is gray), fossils, music, the heliocentric model (Spoiler Alert: The Earth is NOT the center of the universe), the Periodic Table, eating utensils, machines to wash dishes and clothes, automobiles, continental drift, air conditioning, sliced bread, Bose speakers, the body’s circulatory system, atoms, germ theory, telescopes, batteries, the speed of light, anesthesia, movable type, the laws of thermodynamics, insulin, computers, the wheel, paper, clocks, evolution, radio waves, airplanes, genetics, gunpowder, aspirin, agriculture, ceiling fans, and so much more.

So…because of either divine intervention or random universal accident, humans, only one of at least ten million species on one insignificant planet in one solar system (there are possibly 100 billion planets in the Milky Way alone) in one of two trillion galaxies, have attained an almost unimaginable understanding of the universe and have, through intelligence and ingenuity, created the possibility that every human could enjoy a wonderful life. Further, it seems that our ability to understand the physical world and to improve the human condition is virtually unlimited.

Why is it, then, that people fight senseless wars over insignificant issues rather than using resources to make lives better? Why is it offensive when Anheuser-Busch markets a product to transgender folks (and why does someone’s sexual identity matter to anyone else)? Why are we more concerned with banning books than with making the children reading those books safe? Who cares about the Kardashians? Why do we even care about the trivial crap we are told really matters when there is SO MUCH GOOD that we can accomplish?

One of my two best friends died about a year ago. Over the years he and I had countless delightful conversations, but two things he said always stay with me. First, he often said “the universe is stranger than anything humans can imagine”. He was right, but I believe humans have demonstrated an uncanny ability to understand the unknowable.

The second thing my friend often said (especially after we had been discussing politics) was “the human race is too stupid to survive”. I sure do hope he was wrong, but even a cursory review of the daily news doesn’t make one hopeful.

Yep, I’m having my weekly existential crisis, and I believe it is shared by most of my species.

Thanks for following along.

David