I don't know when it started, but watching documentaries or videos about the universe has become a masochistic spiritual ritual.
Sagan said that each of us is stardust. The atoms that make up the iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones were forged billions of years ago when a star exhausted its life and exploded in a supernova. On an atomic level, you and I are not passively living in the universe; we are part of the universe itself. And thousands of years from now, these atoms will deconstruct again and return to the cosmic cycle. Perhaps they will become the petals of a lilac flower, or perhaps they will fly into space, becoming the raw material for the next nova.
Where exactly do we come from?
What is my ultimate destination?
What is the experience of dying? After that, will there be more stories?
Modern neuroscience even offers a gentle explanation for end-of-life care: In the final moments, the brain releases large amounts of endorphins and dopamine, which feels more like the relief of finally sinking into a soft bed after extreme exhaustion. And in the hypothesis of quantum consciousness, conservation of information suggests a certain continuation of consciousness—perhaps freed from the constraints of the body, we would become a pure energy form, to personally experience those black holes and nebulae we once gazed at through a screen.
However, can these grand, poetic, hyper-rational explanations truly soothe a living person's fear of vanishing, of 'erosion'? Last night I lay in bed, eyes closed but completely awake. So I began to try a method that might help me fall asleep faster — imagining and simulating a state of 'nothingness'.
Ordinarily, retinal neurons spontaneously generate faint electrical signal noise when there is no external light stimulation. Yet for a few moments, my vision plunged into a darkness deeper than usual, as if I had switched off the switch of consciousness. Borrowing a term from a game I know, it felt as if I had been inadvertently affected by 'IX'; it was absolute 'nothingness', a feeling where the meaning of our existence dissolves and everything returns to stillness.
In relation to the universe and civilization, our decades-long life is as fleeting as a mayfly. We may never see the stars with our own eyes, never set foot on a space station, a spaceship, or even an alien world, never experience interstellar travel. Neither can we witness the arrival of communism, a society of distribution according to need, nor witness the complete liberation of humanity. Even in the latter half of our lives, we will watch our elders, familiar people older than us, bid us farewell on some quiet day. At this moment, I desperately wish that human lifespan could be infinitely extended, that everything had no 'end'. But that is impossible, at least not in the present era. I admit that those who laid the foundation for great causes are great, but I do not want, nor am I willing, to be merely a stepping stone of history. How I wish I could be a traveler who personally experiences all this, rather than merely indulging in imagination.
Fortunately, although the universe has not promised us eternity, it has given us 'the present'.
If life were infinite, love and longing would be diluted as thin as plain water. It is precisely because we cannot see all the scenery that we are moved to tears by a glimpse of sunset; precisely because we cannot live forever that we strive with all our might to love, to create, to feel within our limited years. This obsession to squeeze every drop of experience dry is precisely the most fundamental flame of life.
Since in the end we all have to become 'stars', before we become stars, let us first be good humans.
Thoughts on Eternity
Thoughts on Eternity
I don't know when it started, but watching documentaries or videos about the universe has become a masochistic spiritual ritual.
Sagan said that each of us is stardust. The atoms that make up the iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones were forged billions of years ago when a star exhausted its life and exploded in a supernova. On an atomic level, you and I are not passively living in the universe; we are part of the universe itself. And thousands of years from now, these atoms will deconstruct again and return to the cosmic cycle. Perhaps they will become the petals of a lilac flower, or perhaps they will fly into space, becoming the raw material for the next nova.
Modern neuroscience even offers a gentle explanation for end-of-life care: In the final moments, the brain releases large amounts of endorphins and dopamine, which feels more like the relief of finally sinking into a soft bed after extreme exhaustion. And in the hypothesis of quantum consciousness, conservation of information suggests a certain continuation of consciousness—perhaps freed from the constraints of the body, we would become a pure energy form, to personally experience those black holes and nebulae we once gazed at through a screen.
However, can these grand, poetic, hyper-rational explanations truly soothe a living person's fear of vanishing, of 'erosion'? Last night I lay in bed, eyes closed but completely awake. So I began to try a method that might help me fall asleep faster — imagining and simulating a state of 'nothingness'.
Ordinarily, retinal neurons spontaneously generate faint electrical signal noise when there is no external light stimulation. Yet for a few moments, my vision plunged into a darkness deeper than usual, as if I had switched off the switch of consciousness. Borrowing a term from a game I know, it felt as if I had been inadvertently affected by 'IX'; it was absolute 'nothingness', a feeling where the meaning of our existence dissolves and everything returns to stillness.
In relation to the universe and civilization, our decades-long life is as fleeting as a mayfly. We may never see the stars with our own eyes, never set foot on a space station, a spaceship, or even an alien world, never experience interstellar travel. Neither can we witness the arrival of communism, a society of distribution according to need, nor witness the complete liberation of humanity. Even in the latter half of our lives, we will watch our elders, familiar people older than us, bid us farewell on some quiet day. At this moment, I desperately wish that human lifespan could be infinitely extended, that everything had no 'end'. But that is impossible, at least not in the present era. I admit that those who laid the foundation for great causes are great, but I do not want, nor am I willing, to be merely a stepping stone of history. How I wish I could be a traveler who personally experiences all this, rather than merely indulging in imagination.
Fortunately, although the universe has not promised us eternity, it has given us 'the present'.
If life were infinite, love and longing would be diluted as thin as plain water. It is precisely because we cannot see all the scenery that we are moved to tears by a glimpse of sunset; precisely because we cannot live forever that we strive with all our might to love, to create, to feel within our limited years. This obsession to squeeze every drop of experience dry is precisely the most fundamental flame of life.
Since in the end we all have to become 'stars', before we become stars, let us first be good humans.