Our brief time in the sun

The Earth is ancient

The Earth is some 4.5 billion years old. This is such a huge number that most people simply can’t process the size of this number.

A common way to think about this is to imagine that this 4.5 billions years is represented as the passing of a single day in your life.

Every second that ticks, as you experience that day, represents about approximately 52,000 years in the actual time elapsed.

If we wind back the clock just one second from the present day, to 23:59:59, we are well before the start of recorded history.

We are in the age of hunter gatherer tribes and the first migrations away from Africa.

If we wind back the clock to just 23:59:30, we’re well before the established emergence of homo-sapiens as a species.

But if we let the clock advance to just 00:00:01 of the following day, then we’re some 52 thousand years in the future.

Assuming humanity survives at all, everything we know of this era would be gone.

Even the language I’m writing this post in, English, would be ancient beyond imagination. More ancient that the pyramids and Stone Henge, by some distance.

Any famous person you care to mention, any movie you enjoyed, any authors you admire or the stories they told, they all will almost surely have been lost to the sands of time.

All the wars that vex our world, all the politicians. All the countries, all the religions, all the institutions that have, in our time, survived centuries. All of it would have been gone so long that nobody would remember they ever existed in the first place.

And yet, out there in deep space would be Voyager 1, passing the first stars beyond our Sun on its mission around the galaxy. This object would perhaps be the only thing left from our time.

Our brief time in the sun

When you place your small, brief life in this context it’s hard to not become nihilist. Perhaps you feel that nothing you do matters or will ever matter.

I think the truth in that is undeniable, actually, and a lot of the human structures we have in society are really rebellion against this darkness.

There are a lot of people in our world striving for their place in history, from Presidents, to CEOs, to serial killers. Yet, as we’ve seen, this is ultimately futile.

Yet in face of this futility, we still have a choice I think.

One is despondency - that nothing really lasting or mattering should be a source of terror or dread.

The other is gratitude - that nothing really lasting or mattering means that whatever transgressions you commit will ultimately be washed away. Or that that any victories, fame or glory you achieve is transient and belongs only to the here and now. Whatever ego you have is helpless against the relentless passage of time.

I choose the second.

Everything I ever do, ever said, ever wrote, ever created, will in the fullness, of time be gone. Every memory of who I was and what I stood for will be forgotten. Every “I love you”, every kiss, every hug, every handshake, every terse word and every outburst of frustration. None of it will survive.

But I’m still grateful for the opportunity to exist and, in some small way, make the experience of living on this planet better for those around me. Living in the now, for the now.

I think that’s the ultimate rebellion against the darkness.