Until a century ago, humans believed we lived in the only galaxy in the universe. Then Edwin Hubble settled the matter, and being inside one galaxy of many has become common knowledge.
Today, we know there are at least 100 billion, and possiby up to 300 trillion galaxies. Of course, we’re limited to what human-designed creations can observe and our own limited perception, but by any measure, that’s a mind-boggling number of galaxies. We may understand some things, but the entirety of the universe is beyond the capacity of the human intellect to understand.
![Image of the Milky Way spiral galaxy against a black background, with a red and white 'pin' that reads "you are here"](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ei1v!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2d0cfdef-61db-467b-90ec-4b3f5b78f742_1638x1638.jpeg "Image of the Milky Way spiral galaxy against a black background, with a red and white 'pin' that reads "you are here"")
We humans value what we don’t have. We grasp to collect things—objects, money, experiences—to bolster our sense of identity.
What makes ‘outer space’ special is that it’s not here. Our Milky Way galaxy, which is a spiral galaxy, is every bit as magical as the Spiral Nebula shown at the top of this post.
Yet each of us is made of the same compounds that makes up the known universe; we are literally made from the same material as everything else in the universe: carbon, oxygen, iron, calcium, sodium, magnesium and more. In other words, we are an integral part of the universe, not separate from it. And we are already exploring the universe by being in these human bodies.
We are an integral part of the universe, not separate from it.
From that perspective, how miraculous is it that we’re embodied on this planet, that we can even perceive ourselves as separate? That the atmosphere here is just right to sustain a wide variety of life (well, that’s changing, but that’s a whole other post).
We humans are so dissatisfied with what we have. That’s just ego. The ego craves and grasps for more, for power, for expansion. But we’re on Earth for a reason, and holy cow, isn’t it a magical planet?
We already are space tourists. We are an arrangement of atoms and molecules, a bundle of carbon and electricity like everything else in the known universe.
Which begs the existential question, ‘why’? That’s like asking why the moon or why the stars. But a far more compelling answer came to me in 2010: “If we weren’t embodied, what would chocolate taste like?”
We are the universe, currently disguised as humans
Without our senses, how could we perceive sound, texture, wind? Without emotion, how could we know what is helpful and what’s harmful?
That we are already space tourists isn’t a metaphor; it’s the most ordinary miracle of all. The journey outward and the journey inward bring us to the same place.
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