Heroes Not Zombies

There’s something very beautiful about this cloud pattern. I prefer a sky like this to a homogenous grey one where an apparently solid cloud stretches from one horizon to the other.

I like its “granularity”, the fact it is made of many different smaller clouds, not one of them floating in the sky alone.

When you think about our theory of the origins of the universe – that Big Bang theory – maybe it’s not right but it’s an impressive image isn’t it….the idea that in the beginning was a tiny dense energy which all of a sudden exploded out in all directions to create the universe as we know it. When you think about that, if it is true, then why did these waves of energy start to condense and form clusters, groups and objects? Why when we look at the night sky, even when we look at our own galaxy, The Milky Way, do we not see either just darkness in all directions, or a homogenous grey film stretching from one horizon to the next?

What we see in the night sky are millions and millions of stars, galaxies, and even groups of galaxies. Maybe what lies between them is dark material, and dark energy. But so far we haven’t been able to find it.

The universe is granular. It isn’t homogenous. It’s made of stuff gathered together into clusters and objects. Or, at least, that’s how it seems. So what we see is difference. We see each object as different from it’s surroundings.

We see each object as different from all other other objects, in terms of spatial and temporal co-ordinates, but also in terms of the exact amounts and proportions of elements of which it is made.

We see each object as having a different life story, a different origin in time and space, a different set of environmental influences. We see each object as having a uniqueness which we can only understand by following the multitude of it’s connections – in time, in space, in relationships and in experience.

Beginnings, endings, events and experiences. Edges and boundaries. Connections and relationships. None of this would exist if the universe weren’t full of difference.

Maybe that’s why I find this cloud pattern so beautiful…..because it reveals a fundamental principle of all existence.