The Nothingness of Us

Yesterday I had a SUPER long chat with the second friend I visited. We jumped from one topic to another and we got to the part where we shared our views about Sodankylä. We shared everything we had experienced so far. We agreed that one of the things we loved the most about Sodankylä is the fact that the sky felt limitless, especially if you go to an open field. Just look up and you'd be swallowed in the greatness of the sky and you'll feel that you're really nothing. Nothing. Nothing...

My friend said that it was ironic that the feeling of being nothing made her feel so...FREE!!! I mean, logically speaking, that feeling should really make you feel bad, shouldn't it?

I said to her that what she said made sense. I started thinking about it. I come up with this answer: I feel that sometimes we humans tend to be arrogant. We feel that we can do anything and we can achieve anything. Earth and its resources are OURS. We go day by day striving to be better, to do better, to achieve, to achieve more, to achieve even higher goals...competition is tight, we have to always be alert...we have to keep on improving...more and more and more...Technology has advanced SO much...we can even clone animals and perhaps humans too if our ethics don't close that door...and we begin to lose the ability to feel awed bit by bit...

On the rare occasions when we're feeling awed about the universe and we feel like we're really nothing, all those "burdens" and "races that we're in" are suddenly "put at the back of our minds". We're stripped away of all those things...and we feel free in our nothingness. After all, we are NOTHING.

I'm NOT saying that we shouldn't strive to be better. I'm NOT saying that we shouldn't strive to improve. I'm NOT saying that we shouldn't be responsible beings. All I'm saying is that this kind of feeling is liberating and I wish everybody feel it every once in a while in their lives!!!

Another thing that my friend said about life in Sodankylä resonated with what I felt when I was in big cities. Many people are such in a hurry in life...they try to fill every single moment with activities...they grow agitated when there's nothing surrounding them except nature and serenity and they can't wait to do something to fill the moments. Do, do, do, go, go, go, next task, next errand, next appointment, next meeting...always in a rush because there's traffic, there's a long line, there are demands, demands, demands, deadlines, deadlines, deadlines...even typing these words make me feel tired.

So let me just bask in the glory of nature again...last night I walked home from my second's friend's place underneath a starry sky...mmm...it was -17'C and I just wanted to lie down on a field and enjoy the beauty...

I accidentally found the link to this BEAUTIFUL video while blog-hopping and I'd love to share it with you:

P.S. Just a little bit of info found from here:

The most distant space probe, Voyager 1, was 13 light hours (only 1.5 × 10-3 light years) away from Earth in September 2004.

It took Voyager 27 years to cover that distance.