https://www.space.com/space-explorat...blow-your-mind
Let us first dispense with the infantile delusion that the universe cares. It does not. It sprawls, a leviathan of infinite indifference, its tendrils coiling through abysses where even time forgets its purpose. Stars ignite and expire in silent mockery of mortal brevity; galaxies spin like drunken philosophers, their trajectories as purposeless as the arguments of metaphysicians. The cosmos, dear reader, is a labyrinth without a minotaur, a play without a playwright - a jest so vast that not even the void bothers to laugh.
For in this nameless epoch, we know the truth: the universe does exist, and it is unnecessary. It yawns, gaping and grotesque, a maw lined with quasars and dark matter, chewing neither reason nor malice. What need has it for gods or meaning? It simply is - a cyclopean monument to futility.
And what of humanity, that upstart colony of mites scribbling in the dust? Behold the audacity of Homo sapiens - a title as laughable as it is self-bestowed! They scuttle about their mud-ball, affixing labels to the unlabelable, as if to tame the untamable. "This," they declare, "is a 'quark.' That is a βnebula.β Yonder is 'existential dread.' As though syllables could leash the abyss!
Recall, if you will, the tale of Candide, that paragon of optimism, who insisted his garden required tending. How he would weep to see his progeny now, hoeing rows of jargon in a garden overrun by eldritch weeds! They classify their imaginations into phyla and genera, baptizing star-clusters "Andromeda" and "Sombrero" as casually as one names a lapdog. Yet what is this if not the pinnacle of farce? The cosmos does not know its own name, nor does it care to. It is as likely to answer to "Azathoth" as to "Alpha Centauri" - which is to say, not at all.
Imagine, if you dare, a colloquy between a learned man and the Void:
Scholar: "Behold, O Infinite! I have devised a taxonomy of your wonders - a βPeriodic Table,β a βTheory of Relativity,β a βGrand Unified...β
The Void: [A sound akin to a million black holes vomiting simultaneously.]
Scholar: "β¦Ah. I see. Perhaps I shallβ¦ revisit my notes."
Such is the fruit of human sapience: a litany of labels, brittle as papyrus in a hurricane. The stars, those ancient, pitiless sentinels, burn on, unmoved by our Latin epithets. The Great Old Ones, slumbering in their non-Euclidian crypts, do not stir at the chirping of "quantum" this or "existential" that. All is vanity, as the Preacher saith - but even Ecclesiastes lacked the vision to glimpse the true scale of the joke.
In summation, the universe is a riddle wrapped in an enigma, then dunked in the Lethe and forgotten. Its meaning, if such a word may be soiled by use here, is that there is none - a punchline delivered to an empty room. Humanity, meanwhile, is a troupe of clowns performing Shakespeare in a black hole, convinced the applause of posterity awaits. Alas, posterity is but a mote in the eye of eternity.
Originally Posted by Till
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