I realised that the essential book, the one true book, is one that the great writer does not need to invent, in the current sense of the word, since it already exists in every one of us — he has only to translate it. The task and the duty of a writer are those of a translator - Marcel Proust
After the BBC opened up its archives of In Our Time, I came to the episode about Marcel Proust.
The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff - Carl Sagan, Cosmos
While the saying “we are stardust” seems poetic but vague, it is literally true. The atoms of our bodies were created in the cores of stars billions of years ago.
Imagine our universe as only one of an infinite number of possible universes - be they "Quilted", "Brane" or, most strangely of all, "Ultimate". Brian Green tackled this almost mystical idea head-on in The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. Greene discussed his ideas further during a March 2011 edition of Start the Week.
Imagine too flying through the universe. This animated flight through the universe shows close to 400,000 galaxies, and was derived at John Hopkins University from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Another video meanwhile takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang.
Reading Fathers, Sons and Motorcycles stirred memories of having read Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the first time, many, many years ago.
Every atom in our bodies was fused in the body of an ancient star. NASA astronomer Dr. Michelle Thaller explains how the iron in our blood connects us to one of the most violent acts in the universe- a supernova explosion - and what the universe might look like when all the stars die out.
Alan Watts proposed that "the most real state is the state of nothing," Our current reality, argued ideapod, is just a small piece in the reality of what it means to exist, to be nothing. While many consider this current state of existence, of life, as the crux of reality, perhaps our real state occurs before and after our lives in the abyss of "nothingness".
See also:
Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths - Joseph Campbell
Coming across this quote reminds me that Campbell's four Masks of God volumes sit tantalisingly on my shelves, from where they've tempted and taunted me - occasionally dipped into but never fully absorbed - for nigh on 20 years. I wonder whether old Joe ever found a myth about procrastination?
Maybe Proust should wait a while, after all...
A composite presentation, compiled from various sources, sketched a view of the far future of our world and of the solar system.