We Are Celestial Bodies
Mikayla Millard, “Saturn Eyes”
by Alexander Schell
Humanity is not what we have so long imagined it to be. Our destiny is not to conquer every mystery of the universe, or to discover the answers to every existential question guiding our passion. It matters not what side will prevail in our squabbles. In what we perceive to be the end, in the deaths of our physical bodies, we all will contribute the same amount to the progress of the end of our universe and the beginning of a new one. We are martyrs who all will die in pursuit of the same goal. We are the universe learning to love itself. She will thank us all and embrace the atoms which come from our bodies to form new stars and nebulas.
This raises a question that I have grappled with for quite some time. The question, of course, is whether or not our own morality matters if, in the long run, we are simply another step in the progression of a universe which we will ultimately take no conscious part in. This question has prevented me from sharing my findings about the nature of the universe, because it raises so many more about the natural integrity of the human spirit, and I am not an adept enough philosopher to answer such questions definitively. I feared that by sharing a revelation of cosmic proportions, by defining a universal truth, I would be enabling and encouraging those who believe that there is no real obligation to be morally upright. After all, for much of humanity’s history, we have relied upon the abstract to shape our guiding philosophies. If we all go to the same place, if everyone’s universe revolves around the same axis, why shouldn’t we all act with only our own interests in mind?
By pondering this dilemma, I have come to a few uniquely comforting conclusions. In order to explain them fully I must first establish some realities about our universe. It is in a constant state of change, pushing out the old iteration of itself and progressing towards the new until the new is all that remains. What we call “dark matter” is in reality the beginnings of a new iteration of the universe, and “dark energy,” the energy that progresses the speed at which the universe expands, can be more correctly characterized as the changing equilibrium between dark matter and our current universe’s matter. As the equilibrium shifts in favor of dark matter, we perceive the universe to be expanding more rapidly. In truth, the universe is not expanding. It is moving away from us. We are being left in the rearview.
The change is not as radical as it may seem written down. The process is slow enough that theoretically, if we were able to view the whole universe and its older inactive iterations simultaneously, we would find a great deal of resemblance. Think of it like looking back at a photo of yourself taken just a year or two prior. While certain things may have changed, you are still very much looking back at yourself. If we were to look backwards upon an older iteration of the universe, we might see that all is the same except for a new hairstyle, so to speak.
We can find this divine process within ourselves. Every person experiences changing attitudes and beliefs. Our thoughts and morals are planets and stars. In a year they will be replaced by similar but not identical thoughts and morals, in ten years they will be the vague whispers which guide us, and on our deathbeds they will be all but forgotten, although their influence will remain. Our bodies go through the same process. Our cells are constantly being replaced, and every few years our bodies will be made up of an entirely new batch of cells. So you see, we are all microcosms of the universe itself.
Some may not be content with a metaphor which I admit may be a stretch. As I said previously, philosophy is not my strongest suit. To those who demand a more concrete reason to act decently, I offer this: along with my discovery about the nature of the universe, I have also stumbled accidentally upon another truth that is less significant in the grand scheme of the universe, but may prove to be the key factor in introducing such a monumental concept to the masses without inducing hysteria. In discovering an aspect of the nature of the universe, I have also discovered indefinitely the answer to the question: “Where do we go when we die?’
Human beings, along with all other lifeforms in the universe (carbon based or otherwise), produce a single atom when we die. This atom is forged within our bodies and takes a lifetime to form. The nature of this atom depends upon several factors which are unimportant in this context save for two: the electrical and chemical activities in our bodies. Feeling emotions that we perceive as positive more frequently leads to the production of a more refined atom, and using our brains and bodies frequently throughout our lives leads to more easily excitable atoms which are prone to travel further in their lifespans. I share all of this to come to the point that those who lead lives defined by positivity and the pursuit of knowledge are more likely to produce atoms that end up in the hearts of stars. And who wouldn’t want that?
It almost seems too intuitive to be legitimate. Happiness and love drive the universe forward? It’s like the message out of a children’s cartoon. I have been skeptical myself. I have studied my laboratory’s mice toward this end, and have found that without fail, the subjects who were placed in social settings and given proper care and attention overwhelmingly produced hydrogen, helium, and other star components, while those that were kept alone or in stressful environments produced far more heavy atoms, which varied depending on the level of difficulty that they faced in life. It seems, then, that what we perceive as positive behavior is felt as positive because it leads us to create atoms which the universe has more use for.
On my deathbed, I will arrange for my body’s atom to be observed. In my life, I have done a great deal of things that many humans will only read about. I have observed alien life, been to the far reaches of our solar system, and smelled the scent of our galaxy. And yet, all of those achievements will mean less in deciding my fate after death than the knowledge of what I put those poor mice through. I will dedicate this book to them.
With this information, I have come to my own answers to the questions, “Why should we be morally good, and what does being morally good even mean?” I am of the opinion that dark energy is the closest match that we have to the concept of divinity. It is the energy which guides every action, every moment of every life. If this energy lives in us, then we too are divine beings. Perhaps the universe is rewarding us for feeling positive feelings like happiness and love because its final goal is to create an iteration of itself populated entirely by stars; perhaps light is the destination towards which the cosmos embarks. We are guiding the course of the universe by guiding our own lives. We are both the created and the creator. All of this reminds me of something an old friend said on a mission to observe alien life on one of Saturn’s moons, in the shadow of a distant supernova: “We are celestial bodies.”
We are a thought which will eventually be replaced by a new one, and that thought will be replaced by a new one, and these thoughts will be made up of smaller and smaller fractions of the first, until inevitably we can hardly recognize ourselves within the universe. In our own most popular systems of belief we have one crucial detail wrong: The Garden of Eden was not the beginning. It is the end.
If we are all divine ourselves, and if we all are what makes up the divine, the definition of “good” must then be uncompromising compassion for ourselves, our fellow human beings, and all other things both alive and inorganic in the universe. Anything less is indecent, and an affront to the universe itself.