Writer Wander 040 - Backlog Obscurities: You and the Cosmos

Continuing the recent tradition of scouring his Backlog, Wander peruses through an old piece of writing of his

Transcript

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This is Rider Wander 40. You and the Cosmos. As I'm currently recording this, I'm not in my house. I'm not where I typically am. I'm taper taking a little a little trip to the great state of Florida in the city of Miami. Which I'm I'm kidding, I'm actually not I don't really enjoy the state that much, but uh, you know, you do it for family. But uh as I was stating before, I basically don't have any content ready. So I spent the greater part of the entire day thinking to myself, what exactly is it that I'm gonna be recording for today's episode, considering the fact that I don't have anything prepared like I usually do, and this would be the first episode in a long time. Well, actually it's the first episode in our entire history where I'm literally recording it the day before I'm procrastinating like crazy. And I guess this is just how most people do things, but me, I I don't really like to do things that way. I think it's a it's a recipe for for falling into irresponsibility. But you know, sometimes uh you don't really have that many options. And then it occurred to me, I'm someone that over the course of my um relatively young life now, I'm approaching 30, but that doesn't uh I'm still young for all intents and purposes on the Western scale at least. I've written a lot of stuff. I have a lot of interesting little essays and ideas that well not too much, but at one point I had liked the idea of like just sitting down to to write stuff down, and I really enjoy the art of you know written essays, scripted content, structured ideas. I think that there's a certain polish to them that you simply don't get when you're you know, like this podcast, when you're just going off the cuff. And I found a little little folder in my computer that I hadn't accessed in a while that has a couple of those essays that I'd written before, and I figured that it would be interesting to look over those things that I previously written and you know, at the end sort of like talk a bit about what kind of ideas were going through my head while I was uh recording it. And the first one that I have for this time around is a little essay called You and the Cosmos. And this essay I have never read um in a long time, okay. I think I wrote it and uh maybe I read over it one time, maybe I shared it with somebody, but it never saw the light of day like ever again. And I think that uh if I remember correctly, it's sort of like me trying to rephrase the relationship that we often have with the stars and with the with the wider universe because a lot of people often see it as a source of anxiety, and I was wondering maybe we can rephrase that, we can treat that differently and convert it into take a different angle of looking to it. But it's my first time reading through things again, and it's my first time reading anything on this podcast. Um, fair warning, I am not going to edit any of this, uh, aside from like some very basic cuts. This is not gonna be like some type of like audiobook recording. This is just gonna be me recording into my into my microphone and then just chatting about the ideas that are present in what I speak. So without further ado, you and the cosmos. You and the cosmos. In an oft repeated platitude, it has been said that there are two ways of viewing a glass of water. One which says that the glass is half full, and another which claims it to be half empty. More often than not, this platitude is employed to imply that a shift of perspective is the only difference that exists between optimism and pessimism. As with any ingenious turn of phrase, said platitude has been repeated ad nauseum, and as I hope we all know, the more that an idea is expressed in the exact same way, the less effect it has on the human psyche. As humans, we have a habit of identifying good and true things, then proceeding to milk them without once turning back. This phenomenon has repeated itself with virtually every idiom known to man. Hell, the very word platitude, which I totally didn't look up for the formal for which I totally didn't look up the formal definition as I wrote this, implies that the turn of phrase has been, quote, a remark or statement, especially one with a moral content, that has been used too often to be interesting or thoughtful. Naturally, this nugget of wisdom is too valuable to be lost among a sea of similar platitudes. As a result, I want to give it a coat of fresh paint. This time, instead of using a glass of water as an example, I'll use the cosmos. There's a popular meme which has gone through a litany of incarnations and has been rather popular among humanist or pop sign circles of late. It's a meme in which, through some mean, either through an elaborate video or a scale image, we are shown the size of Earth in comparison to the rest of the universe. This is accomplished by beginning with the Earth, then progressively escalating towards planets of significantly larger size, until eventually reaching the limits of the known universe. By then, the implied effect is to have our cozy little planet seem insignificant compared to the rest of existence. Assuming you didn't already forget that the Earth existed after progressing so far away from it. We are just stardust, they say. This is just a hunk of rock, man, floating in an black abyss until the inevitable end of everything. Man is arrogant to think he matters. Just look at the size of it all, they say. Such statements, platitudes, in and of themselves, serve to, in their most innocuous incarnations, defeat notions of human exceptionalism, to remind humans that they are but another clump of matter floating in the ether. In their more sinister variants, they seek to make amenable a sort of sardonic nihilism, which scoffs at the day-to-day notions of the sheep whom believe themselves to be special. Having read thus far, reader, it will likely not surprise you that I find both notions spurious, albeit to varying degrees. But my philosophical objections to such notions are neither here nor there. If I ever discuss them on this blog, this was originally for a blog, by the way, that's that's why it says that. But if I ever discuss them in this blog, it shall be in another one of these mini essays. What I am here to try and clarify is why I find the notion that an empty cosmos can only point to a hollow existence to be a facetious claim. This brings us back to the platitude I brought up earlier in this discussion. The only difference between optimism and pessimism was one's perspective regarding the cup. For us, the only difference between pessimism and meaning is one's perspective regarding the cosmos. Yes, the cosmos can be viewed from a nihilistic angle. Being surrounded by nothing for long stretches of distance has the effect of inculcating a notion of isolation on an unimaginable scale. In fact, I'm willing to grant that upon first inspection, it is this angle which seemingly seems to be the most reasonable. We associate nothingness with a dearth of meaning. But was as was with the cup of water, the nihilistic angle is only one angle among many, and I'd like to outline how I view the apparent hollowness of the universe around us. As far as we know, the universe past Earth is one in which nothing speaks. It is the universe of endless vacuums, of countless planets with not a friendly face upon their surface. It is a universe of ever expanding scope, one that, when compared to us, makes us appear less than ants. But reader, the question of value and meaning is not a quantitative question. The physical space which we inhabit, however limited it might be, is irrelevant to the questions of worth. The questions of worth and value are not quantitative questions, but qualitative ones. Questions of a more abstract nature concerning that which is not readily available to our eyes. It is a question of the stories we share with one another by the fire, of the tender kiss of a loved one, and one found in the scintillating waves of the midnight sea. These are things which, however small they may appear to our other achievements in life, many of us would attest that they are the reasons for why we live. If one was to apply a cold, utilitarian perspective on the cosmos, which sought to determine the value of planets solely on how they could materially benefit man, be that through habitability or rich resources located on the planet, then yes, it would be true that most of what exists is empty. But again, that is only one angle. There is another. Art, our narrative creations, these are things with no tangible benefits. They are things which, on various occasions throughout history, have been frowned upon for being meaningless pursuits, pursuits which ultimately contribute nothing to human flourishing. Despite that, the voices which speak of art in such terms are few and far between. Though we cannot cage it in words, most men upon earth know that art impacts a soul. It galvanizes man in ways which are not immediately apparent. The empty planets, and the vacuums betwixt them, serve the function of reminding me that there are things in this world with no apparent purpose. It reminds me that beauty, virtue, and artistry are ends in and of themselves. They need not justify themselves before anyone. To be there is more than enough. And as the saints of ages past have taught us, to be has always been more than enough. So the next time you stare at the stars and sulk over the insignificance of it all, remember of what it reminds us that to be and to exist are ends in and of themselves, and that the art of the artist works in us through mysterious ways, but it works nonetheless. And perhaps as you stare into the vacuum, into nothing, upon a fateful night, you will find something. So I actually don't remember how old I was when I when I wrote this essay. I think I was definitely I was it it was like in early university. Let me try to sort of zero in on where I was when I was when I was thinking about this. It was probably my my second year of the second semester, or my first semester of the second year, because I remember that I had met this dude in a humanities class, and uh I think that uh we got along based on the fact that uh I think that um there was like an uncomfortable discussion in the humanities class, and basically everyone kind of ended up ganging up on him, and I sort of like chatted him up after the class because I felt that the way he was treated was done in a very unfair manner, and we talked a bit for for a while, and uh, I'm only mentioning him because I he's the only person that I shared this essay with. I don't really talk to him anymore, but he was a cool guy, and uh he's in Argentina right now, and uh I think things are going pretty well for him. But I know that around the time that I was writing this, it it it does feel like a blast from the past because I feel that a lot of the you know, the sort of milieu, the sort of like atmosphere in which I had written this is very different from the kind of things that are in vogue right now. And I feel that when I was writing this, at least on the internet and the broader cultural sphere, there seemed to be this prevailing notion of you know this secular humanism, you know, this idea that uh there's this really shitty page on on freaking uh what's it called? What's it called? I think it's Facebook. I can't believe I just forgot what Facebook was, but it's like I it's called I Fucking Love Science, and you know, people who often posted that were people who had this ideology of like scientism, where it's like this idea that you can only verify things based on science, and you know, there are philosophical reasons for why that notion is obscure, but this is not this is not a philosophy uh podcast. But uh basically that kind of attitude, this scientific triumphalism was apparent in everything, and there's there was always like this idea of like trying to remind humans that, like, hey dude, you're not as important as you think you are, you're not you're not special, you're in this flying hunk of rock in the middle of space, that you're not surrounded by anything for miles, and compared to the immensity of the entire world, you're just a spec. And how dare you think you're the most important thing in the world, etc. etc. And it's interesting to see how that has morphed because that idea, that idea, the way that my apologies taking something out of my mouth, the way that idea has morphed is that I don't I don't feel that secular humanism is as big as it used to be. I think a lot more people are open to spiritual and religious ideas than they used to be, even if it's just in the capacity of being someone who maybe you're not religious, but you're you're curious about a lot of the traditional mythic literature and the traditions that that shape our cultures, and and that's something that you're just interested in it from an almost like academic angle. And I think that that kind of attitude didn't really exist around the time that I wrote this essay. Around the time that I wrote this essay, um I felt like uh you know people didn't treat myths, they they still don't, they still don't, but people sort of they're they're sort of like going to another mindset where they're starting to take myths more seriously and mythical and spiritual language and these kind of ideas, they're starting to look at them with a with a more serious eye. It's not just all like this pure skepticism that existed back then. I think another thing that's very interesting, and maybe this is just me, but I feel that when I was bringing up the example of the cosmos, I I was bringing it up under the assumptions that the cosmos were empty, but I also feel that another thing that has changed between the years of me writing this essay and the experience I'm living right now, that we're all living right now in 2026, is that people are certainly a lot more open to the possibility of alien life. And this is in no small part due to the revelations and the videos that are being shared by the US government and and things like that, and the general distrust that we're starting to have in our institutions, there there are certain things that were so uncommon before, that seem so unthinkable before, yet over time, as I'm observing, as and I'm watching things flow, I'm I'm seeing them sort of like enter the zeitgeist of like common understanding, often beginning as jokes and then morphing into realities. You see this a lot with people who you know people who have like uh conspiracies concerning what happened in 9-11 and the same thing with like extra extraterrestrials, right? And the moon landing that you know the amount of people I have talked to that question the moon landing, uh obviously it's not a majority, but I I feel that it it is it has been something that has come up a lot more in recent years than it did before. Whereas like these these are things that they were almost like sacred cows in our society. And I think that it it allows us to notice how you know so far I've only been talking about you know the the background and the atmosphere in which the essay was uh was created, not even the content of the essay so far. Um, but I I just find this like really really fascinating because I think that this shows that culture can change in an almost quick and an invisible manner. And I feel that in the modern world our culture changes so quickly because we're able to communicate with ourselves with so much more ease now than ever than ever before, that maybe cultural processes that in the past would have taken centuries now happen in in decades, let alone just a few years. And and that's something that is absolutely fascinating to me. But going to the to the content of the essay, what the thing that uh, and I hope that this is the idea that was able to come across from you. I I was also a little surprised with the conclusion that I reached in the end because I I knew I knew the angle that I was taking, I knew the point that I was trying to prove with the essay, and sort of like the rhetorical advice, right? I knew that the pre main purpose of this essay was to take this common view of how people would often scale away and peel back the galaxies and use that as a way to put down people and to make them not feel special and to make them feel like just specks of dust in the air. And my goal was to prove how you can take that that exact same example and invert the perspective that you take on it, and in the end, I I do end with some allusions to my to my religion, but one of the things that that surprised me is that I was expecting this essay to be a little more a little more on the nose concerning my own my own religious beliefs, my my own, you know, my own longings and and desires and you know what I believe to be true. However, it it it it was sort of like kind of snuck in at the end, right? Obviously, if you know a little bit about like the language that Catholics use, you could be able to tell that there there is definitely a Catholic through line through much of this. Though technically I still wasn't Catholic around the time that I wrote this. I was inquiring. But I was expecting myself to be a little more on the nose, and I guess I I guess it's just a stereotype we have of young people, right? Where it's like we think that the younger they are, the less subtle that we that we become, right? You know, the less subtle that we were and that we grow more in subtlety as we as we age. But maybe this is one case where I was I was pleasantly surprised. This has happened to me a few times. I have a very like crappy writing blog from like ages ago. I think I think I mentioned it on on one of the prior podcasts, it's complete garbage. Um, but every now and then I I pop into it and I read through I read through one of those articles I wrote when I was like 16 years old. And I'm like, you know, in terms of like sentence structure and in terms of the humor, a lot of it, um sure, a lot of it reeks of like that snarky attitude that proliferated in the internet during the 2010s, but I think that a lot of it is surprisingly salvageable. And I think often we're too cruel to our past selves and we fail to recognize that human genius really is something else. It really is. It's something that um we have access to from a much earlier age than we're accustomed to thinking of. And I'm not saying this because I'm I'm some sort of prodigy, but because I've I I've also seen this in like just the way that some younger people think, right? I feel that right now there's a lot of wasted potential in younger people. I was just interrupted by my two brothers that entered the room, but I I think that uh I was talking about that human genius, and I think at one point I think I I listened to like someone read an essay written by high schoolers during the during the civil war, and I was surprised with the addiction and the capacity for just critical thinking that was present in and you could tell it was present in the way that these high schoolers from the time of like the the civil war uh wrote down their ideas. I feel that standards have drastically fallen, but I feel that the human capacity for intellect is still there. It's just that we're not cultivating it the same way, the same way that we that we used to, right? And I think that what I tried to do in this essay can apply to literally so many other things. Some things that I that I think about is that there's really a piece of wisdom that I've unlocked in in my life, is that most situations if you just like if you like just switch around the way you look at them, you can almost turn them into anything you want them to be. Things can be as bad as you want them to be, things can be as good as you want them to be. A lot of it really is just framing. And there are things that are objectively horrible for you to happen in your life and that are objectively great to happen, but I say that a sizable portion of how that mental experience is is just that, it's it's mental. And um I just invite all of you listening to this to think what are things in your life that if you just twisted the way you looked at it, if you just like considered another factor that you hadn't considered before, or made a connection that you hadn't considered before, or things that would end up being a lot cooler than you might think they are. But yeah, I like this idea of looking through my backlog because I had a lot of old stuff, and uh I'm thinking that you know something interesting that will be cool to do is that uh I I'm probably never gonna be making audiobooks of like all anything I've written because making an audiobook that sounds good is is probably a pain in the ass. But uh, you know, i I just like I did with like Green Saga, it'd be interesting to look back into my backlog, into old novels that I wrote, maybe old novels that I abandoned, read through them, and like try to try to reconstruct something out of them because I think that there's a lot of interesting commentaries. I have a lot of like abandoned projects that no one knows about that I'd I'd love to share with somebody, and I think that this is a pretty interesting space to you know to just talk about exactly that idea, right? And if you have a backlog or anything like that, or if you want to revisit anything from your past, I I highly recommend it. It it's uh it's a humbling experience. You might be surprised, you will be surprised at both the ways you have changed, and oftentimes you'll be even more surprised at the ways that you haven't changed. But this was Rider Wander episode 40, and uh I'll be seeing you out there. Stay wandering.