I was recently running through my archive, looking for a video that I needed to share, and remembered this old post.
Whenever I think about the magnitude of the universe and the time it would take to travel through it, I’m struck with profound awe and bitter envy.
The awe is the awe of the sublime, like the sort you get in the presence of mountains or the heavy sea. It’s my favourite feeling.
The envy comes from the fact that someday our species might be able to transcend our fleshly mortality, and therefore to travel those distances and see those sights for ourselves. We might be able to plumb the depths of the universe and cross the horizon of the farthest visible light to see what’s beyond its threshold.
It probably won’t even be considered a universe anymore, since we’ll know what’s outside of it, perhaps more great spheres of expanding and collapsing matter.
I suppose I can take consolation from the fact that if we can encompass the universe with experiential knowledge, it won’t be nearly so sublime and majestic. Our limited nature gives the Sublime its true potency, after all.
Still, that’s not much of a consolation. I’d rather just live forever and see everything; and if I have to have an end, it can be one that I accept with the peace of knowing I’ve known everything.
