Looking Up

I tend to look up in wonderment- at the moon, the sun, the stars, the clouds. I’ve always had a relationship with the sky. It’s awakened things in me that feel infinite and boundless.

I grew up around Christianity and human-centered belief systems. The idea that humans are the point. That Earth is the focus. That this is all mainly about us. That never really worked for me. Not in a dramatic way. It just never tracked. That perspective puts a strange amount of weight on being human.

Being the only intelligent life doesn’t feel comforting. It feels like being an anomaly. It adds pressure instead of meaning. Like if we’re the only ones, then we’re carrying more cosmic weight than makes sense. The idea that everything funnels toward humanity just doesn’t match how big the universe actually is.

When I think about the actual size of the universe, being alone just doesn’t feel likely. Not in a sci-fi way. In a basic, numbers-and-distance way. The kind where your brain gives up halfway through and just says, holy shit, that’s a lot.

Scale changes what feels reasonable. It makes me feel connected. Like we’re part of whatever this is. There are more galaxies, stars, and stretches of time than my brain can comfortably hold. Sitting with that makes human logic feel wildly optimistic about how much it should be responsible for explaining.

On an individual level, people can be incredible. As a species, our track record is harder to defend. Tenderness and imagination are part of what makes people remarkable. But harm and rationalization are a big part of the picture. Pretending one cancels out the other is just choosing a more flattering version of events.

Power, politics, and accumulation move faster than care, restraint, or long-term thinking. It makes me hesitant to assume that intelligence naturally evolves into kindness. Human history doesn’t really support that assumption. We build systems that reward subjugation and then act surprised when control shows up everywhere.

This is where I stop romanticizing humanity as the peak of what intelligence looks like. Not because people are bad, but because systems reward the wrong things. Removing humanity from the center changes the entire frame.

A lot of alien theories imagine some direct relationship to humanity. I don’t dismiss that. It just isn’t where my instinct goes. If other intelligent life exists, I don’t assume our frame of reference would be enough to understand it. Whatever form aliens take will be a direct response to a world we’ve never known.

Something about it genuinely tickles my brain in a way I have a hard time putting words to. Not knowing can be...intoxicating.

The moment everything gets wrapped up, the scale collapses. The universe becomes something explainable, containable. What remains unresolved is what preserves the vastness, the mystery.

I don’t need certainty to keep looking up.