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I started 2020 with some good news and with a trippy realisation. The news 'The previously described enhancing lesion in the right frontal pole has decreased in size, slightly but unequivocally'. Ah, don't you love the radiologist's use of 'the u word'? In other words, in late 2019 we continued to get the best of The Terminator. Today, I live to fight another day—well, another six months with high probabilistic certainty. The realisation Check out 'A journey to the end of time' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA). If scientists are anywhere near correct about the age of the universe, then some basic Excel work (I knew my years in finance would one day prove useful!) indicates I've experienced ... 0.0000003% ... of all the time that has ever existed. If scientists are anywhere near correct about the life expectancy of the universe, then—yes, even as it approaches its 14 billionth birthday—the universe has only experienced … 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002% … of its own life. The Total Perspective Vortex Instinctively experiencing that first figure (0.0000003%) as a child terrified and fascinated me. As I grow up I am comforted by insights from the Church, zen philosophy and Trin Tragula's ruminations about his wife (http://hhgproject.org/entries/tragulatrin.html). Today, seeing all those zeroes in front of the second figure, I chuckle that I was looking at the situation the wrong way round. Forget depression relating to how insignificant our bewilderingly teeny-tiny corner of space and time is. On the contrary, the narcissist in me smiles wryly. We are sort of beating the universe in an odd twisted way. And by a few orders of magnitude, to boot!  Comments are closed.
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