stardust (dear john)
You want to hear something amazing?
We are standing on a world that is constantly in motion. We are standing on a world that spins on its axis at a thousand miles per hour and orbits its sun at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour. The tides of our oceans are constantly in motion, as are the tectonic plates beneath our feet. Our thoughts travel faster than we can document, and the light of our stars spreads through the galaxy just barely slower than time itself. And we are all of us inescapably moving toward our ultimate end. We are all of us dead in the future, but right now we are spinning and hurtling through time and space, and it feels like we are standing still.
We were born in a supernova. All of the chemical elements, except for the very lightest like hydrogen and helium, were created in the hearts of massive stars. They were born through nuclear fusion and when the stars went supernova, the particles scattered and became planets and rocks and lifeforms. So the iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones is stardust. We are made of stardust, you and I. We are made of bits and pieces of everyone and everything that ever was. The same stardust was in the bones of the dinosaurs. We drink the same water that they drank. We breathe the oxygen exuded by a million plants, whose roots and stems and leaves have reached down in the soil and soaked up strength from the remains of our ancestors.
And in spite of this, in spite of the fact that every particle of our being came from somewhere else first, we are ourselves. And in spite of how fast our world travels, in spite of how vast and inexplicable and unpredictable it is, you and I somehow met each other, and here we are now.
I can't think of anything more amazing than that.
And someday, I might work up enough courage to tell you this.
We are standing on a world that is constantly in motion. We are standing on a world that spins on its axis at a thousand miles per hour and orbits its sun at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour. The tides of our oceans are constantly in motion, as are the tectonic plates beneath our feet. Our thoughts travel faster than we can document, and the light of our stars spreads through the galaxy just barely slower than time itself. And we are all of us inescapably moving toward our ultimate end. We are all of us dead in the future, but right now we are spinning and hurtling through time and space, and it feels like we are standing still.
We were born in a supernova. All of the chemical elements, except for the very lightest like hydrogen and helium, were created in the hearts of massive stars. They were born through nuclear fusion and when the stars went supernova, the particles scattered and became planets and rocks and lifeforms. So the iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones is stardust. We are made of stardust, you and I. We are made of bits and pieces of everyone and everything that ever was. The same stardust was in the bones of the dinosaurs. We drink the same water that they drank. We breathe the oxygen exuded by a million plants, whose roots and stems and leaves have reached down in the soil and soaked up strength from the remains of our ancestors.
And in spite of this, in spite of the fact that every particle of our being came from somewhere else first, we are ourselves. And in spite of how fast our world travels, in spite of how vast and inexplicable and unpredictable it is, you and I somehow met each other, and here we are now.
I can't think of anything more amazing than that.
And someday, I might work up enough courage to tell you this.