The Infinitesimal and the Infinite

 A friend shared a poem with me today:

Vast Emptiness

Emotion less
Thought less
Good less
Bad less
Joy less
Sorrow lessDevoid of it all
Is this vast emptinessA few fireballs littered around as stars
A few pebbles thrown around as planets
A few specks of dust moving around as life
As plants as trees
As insects as worms
As fish as reptiles
As birds as animals
As men as women
And the non-gender ones tooWinds swirling
Rains lashing
Thunders thundering
Dust storms brewingOf what significance
But an eternal play
Of time in the lap of timelessAll of the above
But words in my head
Without words
There is but
Vast Emptiness

I used to have similar thoughts, and I'm sure many a reflective man or woman have had the same.

But here is a counterpoint to this wondrous feeling and cognition of being a mere speck in the vast space-time. And that is the wondrous feeling and cognition that in this infinite vastness, infinite duration, but at present, here and now, I am. I exist, I am aware, I see, I wonder.

The insignificance is as marvelous as the infinitely improbable existence of us. Both are marvelous, both are wondrous, both are worthy of one stopping in one's tracks and be awed.

One existence, that of space-time, is infinite (notwithstanding the Big Bang model of a finite universe), the other ephemeral: I was not aware before I was born, and I shall be not aware after I die. But in a certain sense, I am eternal too, because I am part of this universe. And I shall never cease to exist, but shall go on to appear in different forms.

And what a wonder of wonders that matter arranges itself so as to be self-aware. It is perhaps the greatest wonder of all.