We are born. We do things. We die.
That is how I see existence in its distillation. Some of us make an impact beyond our own lives. Most of us just grapple with our own shit. We mostly bring nothing of consequence to our own neighborhood, let alone town or city or state or country or the planet or the galaxy.
This is admittedly a dim, pessimistic view but that is my view. This morning I saw a singular ant on my bathroom floor moving about in an utterly random pattern. I am sure in its minuscule world it was acting to a purpose. Some entity as proportionately bigger than me as I am than the ant could look at me and see the same randomness. I am, of course, acting to no purpose.
I have been thinking along these lines afresh since I read on NASA’s website yesterday that the universe is likely expanding faster than thought so far. Many of you might know about the Hubble Constant, one of the most consequential numbers in cosmology that helps determine the age and size of the universe. According to Max Plank’s observations of the early universe that constant was believed to be 67 kilometers (41.6 miles) per second per megaparsec. Megaparsec is a million parsec; a parsec being the amount of distance light travels in 3.3 light years. For the benefit of the general readership let us just say that it is extremely long-- 31.218 trillion kilometers or 19.40 trillion miles, if you please.
However, NASA reports a new study that found that the new estimate of the Hubble constant is 74 kilometers (46 miles) per second per megaparsec. “This means that for every 3.3 million light-years farther away a galaxy is from us, it appears to be moving 74 kilometers (46 miles) per second faster, as a result of the expansion of the universe. The number indicates that the universe is expanding at a 9% faster rate,” NASA explains.
A time will come when the universe will be so far apart that we will no longer be able to see anything beyond our immediate galactic/planetary neighborhood. What’s all this go to do with my opening “We are born. We do things. We die”? If you think carefully, you would realize that it neatly sums up our station in the universe that is expanding even faster. The ant in my bathroom has since disappeared. If it returns, there is no way I could tell if it is the same one.
Hence the following single verse, half in Sanskrit and half in Hindi.
यथा योग्यं तथा कुरु
इसके लिए न चाहिए गुरु
(Do what is reasonable
To know that you do not need a guru)
--मयंक छाया