Sitting in the quietude of the Pencil Pit before dawn, my mind wanders through the vast cosmos, far beyond the confines of this rustic barn. The phrase “everyone loses everything” lingers in my thoughts, now intertwined with the staggering scale of the universe I pondered yesterday.
I watched a video that put the size of our Milky Way Galaxy into perspective. Imagine the entire United States (just the lower 48 states) representing the Milky Way. In this grand scale, our entire solar system is a mere speck around Kansas City, Kansas. It struck me profoundly. On the fingertip of a person, amidst the ridges and valleys of a fingerprint, a tiny yellow ball represented our Sun – smaller than a grain of sand, yet in reality almost 900,000 miles in diameter. The immensity is unfathomable.
Lying in bed last night, I couldn’t shake off the image of our solar system, all seven planets and their orbits, fitting on a man’s fingertip. In this grand cosmic scale, the significance of a single human, or even humanity as a whole, becomes infinitesimally small. We are but a fleeting whisper in the boundless universe, one of billions of galaxies, each with its own billions of stars and planets.
And yet, here I am, in the Pencil Pit, pondering the finite nature of our existence. “Everyone loses everything” – the phrase seems even more poignant against the backdrop of the cosmos. Our time, our possessions, our very beings are transient in this vast universe. But rather than diminishing our lives, this thought imbues them with a profound significance. Each moment we live, each connection we make, every line we write is a miracle against the canvas of this almost endless universe.
This perspective, from the scale of galaxies down to the simple act of writing in my barn, is a humbling reminder of our place in the cosmos. It grounds me in the present, reinforcing the importance of cherishing every fleeting moment. In the grand scheme of things, we may be insignificant, but in the realm of our personal experiences, every moment is vast and meaningful. This is where the true spirituality lies – not in clinging to what we will eventually lose, but in fully embracing the now, the ephemeral beauty of existence in a universe so vast, it’s beyond our full comprehension.
The Pencil-Driven Life 