Lainey Smethers, Living on a Floating Rock

Icould expatiate on how much I dislike the ideas of the ‘king’ of astrophysics, but if you’ve read The Pale Blue Dot, then you should agree. This text is unbearable to read. Basically, we don’t mean anything because we’re just sacks of flesh on a rock that’s floating out in space and we aren’t the center of the universe. With that kind of logic, nothing matters. Nothing we do matters. Money is meaningless, the most prominent people don’t have the “power” we think they do, and it doesn’t matter what happens to us in the end.

We can’t go live on another large rock floating in space. Sure, Mars sustained tiny bacterial life, but it doesn’t have the atmosphere or climate to sustain human life. And that makes humans as a whole look sad. Why continue to research and build hope for a planet that could never naturally sustain us?

According to Sagan, we could have done this 3 trillion years ago, and can’t now because paragravity would have to exist and coincide with the laws of physics and it currently doesn’t. Paragravity is, by definition, artificial gravity. It’s impossible to use it to obtain orbit. You would have to supply ample energy and find a circuit of pairs to join the orbit. After this, to stay up in space where you are, you would need enough orbital velocity to keep you up and not crash into the planet or something floating around the planet. So if we put ourselves, or an artificial atmosphere, up to orbit Mars, paragravitionally it wouldn’t be feasible. If this is the case, why bring it up? Why go on about something that doesn’t exist but could work in theory if we astrophysically tweaked it?

If this man says that I don’t matter because I’m a human that lives on this tiny earth, then his argument pulses on inconsequential, even hypocritical. If we, as humans, are so insignificant, then why is he, a human, writing a book talking about it?

After suffering an existential crisis subsequent to studying this, I produced my own theory: humans make each other matter. If we can give uncircumstantial monetary value to a piece of paper, we can give uncircumstantial existential value to our own lives. We aren’t the center of the universe, we’re the center of our universe.

Now that we’re past that, I’ve comprised a list of reasons why I do in fact matter, and why I surely must be the center of the universe:

1) I make really good brownies. 2) I have an herb and vegetable garden, but some might call it an herb and fruit and vegetable garden since I grow tomatoes in the summer. 3) I have an unusually unstable mental state, so maybe eventually when it gets bad enough, scientists will use my brain to study on and I will pioneer some kind of research about hereditary bipolar disorder and BPD. Although maybe they should’ve studied my grandpa instead, before he killed himself. 4) I can play the harmonica. 5) I am classically trained in the piano, although I don’t like to talk about it much because saying you’re “classically trained” makes you sound holier than thou to the average bear. 6) I stream “Cough Syrup” at least 1,492 times a day, so I like to think I contribute to most of Young the Giant’s success in the music industry. 7) I have never missed when throwing a grape in the air to catch it in my mouth. 8) I add a sense of personality to my family that the others just don’t have. Being raised by conservative Mormon grandparents and ignored by a crack head mom and meth head dad can really add to a girl’s character development.