The Story of Us

The universe is enormous.

I mean it is unbelievably, unfathomably vast. I know I lessen the impact of those words by employing them hyperbolically all the time but in this instance I'm not only being completely serious, it's actually understating matters. The universe we represent the tiniest and most inconsequential speck of is enormous in ways that mere words have no power to adequately describe. It is so big and we are so tiny that to even call it 'our' universe is almost arrogant. It isn't 'ours'. We just live in it. If anything, we belong to it.

The universe is old, too. Not just ancient, but so old it makes 'ancient' look pre-pubescent. We can only estimate how old it might be and we do that by calculating the space between us and the dimmest, most far-reflected scraps of light. Even based on this the answer isn't consistently agreed-upon and differs from eleven billion years to sixteen billion years depending on who you ask. Either way it is many times older than Earth--indeed many times older than our galaxy. And that's just what we think we know; there's every chance, in fact a pretty damn good chance, that it's even older than that and that we just can't perceive it any further. 'Old' doesn't even begin to cover it.

And it's empty. Really empty. The stars look innumerable, and those are just the ones we can see, but they're spread out over an enormous area. The distance from one floating hunk of rock or gas to another is similarly massive beyond reckoning. Even within our own solar system--effectively our own neighbourhood--the distance is so big it takes years to traverse even the smallest. We still can't reach all the way to the edge of it, and that's locally. Forget going from one galaxy to another--we can't even get out of our own solar system. And no matter how hopeful so-called 'UFO-logists' are, it's unlikely anyone or anything else ever has, or ever will.

All we can do is look up in awe, the scope of our understanding too limited to really meaningfully comprehend just what we're seeing. We're not even a cosmic speck of dust. We're a proton in an atom in a cosmic speck of dust. We are so inconsequential it makes us nervous to think about it, so we like to pretend this isn't the case.

People who like to deny the modern interpretations of cosmology, geology, and biology that make up the story of us point to these facts as a way to deny the natural processes behind our existence. The odds stacked against it all are too big to have been overcome naturally. So we must be the product of a divine will, a being and intelligence far beyond our understanding. Somehow it's easier to think we're the fleshy Legos of a god, rather than the result of unlikely but entirely natural events.

Make no mistake: that we are here at all is the result of defying incredible odds. Absolutely nothing about us or our existence is in any way inevitable. Our galaxy and solar system were formed in just the right circumstances, our location within the universe in just, the conditions of our planet within just the best range so as to allow life to form. Or rather, to allow life as we know it to form. That's the key term, and one a lot of people overlook--as we know it. Life as we know it is actually pretty startlingly limited. Life and intelligence under a completely different set of parameters, that we can't even begin to grasp an understanding of, could exist anywhere without us knowing because we just don't know the criteria to search for.

We as humans aren't very comfortable with all this, which is why we gravitate to the intelligent design angle more than we accept a natural explanation. With such a narrow scope of comprehension for the universe around us, denial is easier than research. If we were created, then we're special--instead of just being that cosmic proton that makes us so uncomfortable.

But no, we're not special. At least not like that we're not. But just because nobody and nothing 'poofed' us into existence on special order doesn't mean we can't be cherished. As I said, our existence is in and of itself incomprehensibly unlikely. That our planet is hospitable to life as we know it is impossible enough as it is--even on a much smaller scale, our very evolution, wasn't inevitable. Things could have, and very nearly did, go completely differently at any time. Circumstances could have changed and the development of a single upright-walking, big-brained primate could have gone another way completely.

This is rather insulting to quite a lot of people, on the theory that defying cosmic odds is way less cool than being put here on purpose. On the whole, though, I think it stems from insecurity rather than any actual offensiveness inherent in being natural creatures. The words 'chance' and 'luck' are bandied around with something like violent hatred in these arguments. Scientists are quick to correct such statements by saying that randomness and luck have nothing to do with it, but again: nothing was inevitable. It still isn't.

I don't find any of this upsetting or insulting at all. To the contrary, I think it's amazing. That so much of our existence is so very fragile doesn't detract from our worth but adds to it. Far from computers, or penicillin, or the printing press, or written language, the greatest achievement in the history of mankind is that we're even here at all--and that here we stay.

And the fact that it is all so very delicate is beautiful. The fact is that we are not special. At any point in the history of our planet things could have gone differently, with far-reaching effects. That everything we know came so very close to being so very, very different--or not existing at all--only makes it clear how beautiful and precious it all really is.

Which is a point of view you just can't see when you're a creation.