Journey to the Abyss

I gaze into the clear night sky, where billions of stars are scattered across a black canvas. Immersed in its vastness, I am overcome by awe — a surge of wonder that pulls me under. And then, I slide down a slope I hadn’t anticipated:
“Look at you — so small, so insignificant.”

Truly, in the face of the cosmos and the infinity of time, even the boldest humility feels like arrogance.

An unfamiliar fear takes root in my bones — the fear that my mind will shatter under the weight of this insignificance. I cling to scraps of knowledge, desperately searching for something to steady me:
“There must be a way to survive this. Think. Many before you have looked into the abyss of truth and returned. There must be a way.”

I reflect on the origins of life on this pale blue dot. Perhaps four billion years of evolution are no more than a cosmic hiccup — and yet, it defies comprehension. I catch myself laughing at this helplessness. A whisper rises in my mind:
“See? It wasn’t so scary. See how you can laugh at your own nothingness and still feel joy? You’re on the right path. Keep going. Follow that thin thread you’ve found.”

I don’t know how life first slipped into a single cell. Even if I accept that the universe rolled a miraculous dice, how did we arrive here? I walk myself through the logic of evolution:
“It’s clear — natural selection! Each mutation, each adaptation, a delicate dance of life against oblivion.”

I pause. From the absence of life and the certainty of death, we arrived at a creature like me — preoccupied with time, stretching back before my own being and all who came before.
“So, time travel isn’t impossible,” I muse. “It’s just that my feet are no use on this journey.” It feels like a discovery.

I reflect on the miracle of life. Even the brightest minds and most skilled experts can’t design or build a fraction of a living organism. So how did existence, without intention, without expertise, without purpose, bring forth this masterpiece?
With each spark of realization, the slender thread I cling to gains strength, and my hope swells that it might carry the heavy weight of my insignificance.

Where did this miracle come from? I know nature’s laws carve a narrow corridor of possibility — but what beyond that? Two things come to mind: mortality and time.
What a profound paradox: mortality, the mother of life; the dance of life and death weaving forward, like yin and yang, chaos and order locked in eternal tension — the very engine of becoming.

“Well,” I tell myself, “mortality is yours, whether you want it or not. Now that you think you understand, what next?”
I wish the answer were as simple as the question. I scold myself:
“No — it’s the question that births the answer. Keep going.”

The tools I have to work with are the natural laws that bind me — and time.
“Time,” I realize. “That relentless, one-way march, immune to all resistance. But you can change the scale by which you measure it.”
I feel the ache of my mind stretching to hold this thought. Maybe, like evolution, time can be seen as infinite. Maybe we can stop expecting immediate results from every choice.
“Yes — that’s it. Keep going!”

I wonder where this damned voice in my head is getting its bold confidence.
“You’re caught,” I tell myself. “You always ran from faith, saw it as the enemy of reason and philosophy. But here you are, trapped in its net. You had no choice but to trust the process, to believe in its power. Think about it — evolution is now shaping you. In the end, you must choose a path, or you’ll waste your existence paralyzed in analysis.”

I surrender. I give in to faith — faith in the boundlessness of time, and in its quiet, healing touch.

And now?
What of nature’s laws? My mind creaks under the weight of the next thought:
“Biological and technological growth are inevitable. Set that aside. What remains, that nature and the cosmos cannot impose on you — what requires only your will?”

I have it. Kindness. Love. Compassion.
“Love? You, who always prided yourself on being above such romantic notions?”
Before I can hammer this idea into the mold of identity, I answer myself:
“Not love for a person, but love for the species. Not an act, but a way of being. Ah, the helplessness of words overwhelms me.”
So be it — live in such a way that love overflows from your very Dasein.

Excited, I begin to fit my discoveries into a shimmering puzzle:
“Love, stretched across time, becomes the missing gene evolution never carried.”
I snap back to myself:
“Such audacity from a nothingness! To add a meta-layer to evolution? To love in the hope of a result that may bloom generations after you’re gone? What distant star did you pull this wild hope from?”

But it’s too late — I’ve surrendered.
I’ve surrendered to the belief that I can redeem the smallness of my existence by transforming how I see time.
“Spill your essence onto the canvas of being. Let your presence overflow. Even without you, your essence will ripple through the fabric of existence. Have faith.”

I return to myself and feel the smile that’s formed on my lips — so unconscious, it’s as though I’m watching someone else.
On this journey into the abyss of my mind, I multiplied the nothingness of my being by the infinity of time — and rose, from soul-crushing terror, to something like godhood.
What a feeling of majesty and quiet pride this smallness carries.