What is out there?

I was caught off guard last week while I was home in NY when I looked up at the sky and for the first time in months saw a brilliant starry night. Living in the city, it is one of those things that I have missed without even realizing it, but boy did I miss it. Growing up, I used to spend hours just gazing at the night sky during the summer. One time, an experience I will never forget as long as I live, I was down in the Bahamas and I witnessed the most intense night sky of my life; there were more bright spots in the sky than dark patches and the stars seemed so real and so close that I could almost touch them.

For me, looking up at the great beyond has always been a very humbling experience. I look, watch, listen, and just think to myself, "what is out there?" When you think about it, there are sooooo many stars and planets that are soooo far away and even more that our little eyes cannot see. There are thousands of galaxies like ours with limitless potential for....well anything. I marvel at how outstanding life is that we have this beautiful and amazing planet with millions and billions of fascinating life forms all with unique characteristics, and yet, we are just one planet amongst a universe. Holy shit we are insignificant. I mean does it really matter in the grand scheme of things what I do today, does it affect anything else in this gargantuan universe? The fact that it can is just mind-blowing, so most of us tend not to think about things in terms of their universal impact and justly so. But I just get so excited when I think that (assuming the big bang is somewhat close to true) every spec of atomic particle in this universe was once all gathered together in the tiniest space imaginable and then blew up to spread out everywhere. But since matter is not ever created or destroyed (at least that is what they tell us so far), all matter on this planet is somehow connected to everything else on this planet and every other planet out there. Ok this may be getting a little nerdy and heavy, but it just blows my mind that life even exists sometimes. I mean sure we are alive, but we also manipulate matter, we think, we can use our senses, we wonder at our own existence; everything we do is just so complex and brilliant, so significant. How is it possible? This, this complexity, our capabilities, our gorgeous design, that fact that all that I just mentioned is seemingly insignificant compared to the humongous universe is what makes me love life so damned much. The fact that we exist is something so awesome that I just can't help but appreciate it and be thankful for it and try to take advantage of all the life I have by living every moment and learning as much as I can.

Back to the stars though, can it be possible that we are the only planet with life on it? Is that self-centered to think? Can we ever know? I really hope there is life elsewhere and although I cannot even fathom what it is like, I hope they are wondering about us. There is just so much potential out there it can't be all for not. Either way, when I do die I hope that my life becomes apart of all that again, the cosmos, and maybe gets deposited somewhere else. I just wish that for now, I could still stargaze in the city.