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insignificance
There is a Buddhist practice of meditating on death, to force yourself to accept your own mortality. You are not special, physical pleasures are fleeting, samsara sucks, etc. 10 of the 40 classical meditation themes focus on corpses in various states of decay and defilement. Monasteries had skeletons mounted at the end of a short path, so monks could spend the afternoon slowly walking toward it, contemplating how we all end.
The new Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image was released today. Taken over two weeks, it contains over 10,000 galaxies about 13 billion years old. Vast beyond human comprehension, in distances both physical and temporal.
I've been staring at it, as an experiment in existentialist meditation. I try not to let my ambitions be limited by assumptions about lifespan or the capabilities of the human mind. But that's a lot of emptiness to be filled with meaning by my entire species over the next few billion years, much less by me. I feel very, very small.
Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt.
The new Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image was released today. Taken over two weeks, it contains over 10,000 galaxies about 13 billion years old. Vast beyond human comprehension, in distances both physical and temporal.
I've been staring at it, as an experiment in existentialist meditation. I try not to let my ambitions be limited by assumptions about lifespan or the capabilities of the human mind. But that's a lot of emptiness to be filled with meaning by my entire species over the next few billion years, much less by me. I feel very, very small.
Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt.
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