The Departure Lounge

We are all voyagers.

Life brings many things - pleasures, trials, tribulations, mistakes, success, failure. Life brings us the heights of happiness and the depths of despair. We all encounter these imposters in variable measure throughout our lives. I guess the trick is to recognise them for what they are and try to achieve balance and equilibrium from it all.

This blog is an attempt to present some observations, experiences, opinions, knowledge and anecdotes from an ordinary person, living a life on an extraordinary planet in an immense galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars - a galaxy which itself is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies floating in the incomprehensible vastness of the cosmos.

When we consider the numbers, the scale, the distances, the time and the sheer complexity of the universe, we are justified in feeling slightly insignificant. However, as Carl Sagan wrote, " We are all made of star stuff". When I read that it made my spine tingle. It made me feel very special and made me realise how incredible life on our planet is and how awe-inspiring the universe is.

I'm not a creationist. I'm not even agnostic. I'm an atheist with respect for religious beliefs. I'm a Richard Dawkins, without the attitude, and aggressive anti-religious rhetoric (and without the intellect, I should add!).

Despite my atheism, I still wonder. I wonder how, why and when did time, space, the universe and the formation of the building blocks of life begin.

We can argue against creationism until the cows come home, citing Darwin's seminal work. But what of the Big Bang. The Singularity. The moment when time and space and the universe began. What was there before? Who or What created the Singularity?

If there was the Nothing, Who or What was responsible for creating the Nothing?

How can we start with Nothing and end up with Something? Not just any old Something, but the vast cosmos and our planet Earth or, as Carl Sagan described it; "the Pale Blue Dot".

In any event, our personal lives, all life on Earth and the universe appear to me to be controlled by the mysterious laws of entropy. Low entropy giving order, high entropy giving disorder or chaos!

From all the "star stuff" and entropy, we humans evolved into beings who possess many remarkable attributes and just as many less than remarkable things. We are capable of good, bad and the downright ugly. These are too numerous to mention in this post but I'll touch on all of these things as my voyage through the blogasphere progresses.