All the Stuff in the Whole Wide World

You probably already know this and if you don’t know, we live in a cold meaningless universe. We came from nothing and we are going extinct. Everything you know and love, everything you knew and loved, everything you will ever know and love rides on a speck of dirt which revolves around a fiery ball of plasma in an insignificant corner of an insignificant galaxy. Even that patch of the universe you are hurtling through is barely above absolute zero. Yes, absolute zero being the temperature even atoms call it a day and bleed out to, well we don’t know what exactly but they certainly give up.

The tissues by cells from atoms. But who did those atom come into being?

On that cheerful note, think of all the little bits that make up you. The tissues by cells from atoms. But who did those atom come into being? Sure they were part of a nebula which coalesced from spirally discs of dust to form planets but that nebula was formed from stars going kaboom. There was just Hydrogen and Helium floating around, forming giant fiery balls of plasma and then eventually exploding and forming giant fiery balls of plasma and so on and so forth. All the light elements, below iron on the periodic table, were formed as those stars planned for retirement and went into old age. As they ran out of that sweet hydrogen, forced together heavier and heavier particles together to fire up the factories and eventually reached iron.

As a rule, universe doesn’t much like the concept of impossible so we make do with plain old improbable.

Iron is strong, as we all know. Iron atoms also really like being iron, they don’t fuse with each other or anyone else to form heavier atoms but we still have stuff like gold and platinum floating around. How did the periodic table get filled? Well even stars die. Smaller ones just get bloated and go all red till even that goes away and then just glowing husks remains. The bigger ones like going out with a bang. They try so hard to fuse those iron atoms that they go nova or if they really big they go supernova. And that’s where the magic happens. You see it is not impossible to fuse iron. As a rule, universe doesn’t much like the concept of impossible so we make do with plain old improbable.

But in those dying core of stars, conditions are just right. And finally, we have the elements which formed the nebula, which formed the stars and the planets, which formed you. The universe went through a lot of trouble to make you, even though it is still uncaring and meaningless and nothing really matters. But in the tiny silver of infinity, when things were just right. When the improbable was beaten back by the fury of dying stars, there is you. And maybe just that can be enough.