The Sun

The source of all energy for all organisms on earth is the sun.
Chemotrophs, phototrophs, autotrophs, heterotrophs,
single and multicellular organisms:
eukaryotes, prokaryotes, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, vertebrates, invertebrates
mammals, warm blooded and cold blooded,
Birds, bees, buffalos, cheese.
The sun gives us cheese.
And yet, in some billions of years,
it will incinerate every last thing it ever once gave life to.

The sun giveth, and the sun taketh away.
It can be quite a morbid thought.
All that is will one day no longer be.

Okay, take a deep breath.
Make things smaller.
Fill your lungs slowly, calmly
with air containing nitrogen, oxygen, argon and carbon dioxide.
Let the pressure inside you diffuse oxygen
through your alveolar sacs into your blood.
How special is it that that is happening.

You are a product of the suns energy that has developed and evolved over billions of years to become a self-aware conscious clump of cells and matter.

This conscious carbon clump of organised energy
lives among other carbon clumps of organised energy.
They live and eat, and smile.
They make repetitive sounds and gather and dance,
they make memories, friendships, love.
They, you, laugh and smile.

The universe is infinitely large, dark & hostile,
with our world heading towards an undeniable, unchangeable demise
and yet you sit with your friends at dinner on a Friday night at the local,
and you laugh.

So yes, the sun will inevitably consume everything
that you or anyone you know has ever known to exist.
But not for a really, really, really, really long time.
Who gives a fuck.
You're here now,

and right now, is pretty great.

"I’ll tell you how the Sun rose –
A Ribbon at a time –
The Steeples swam in Amethyst –
The news, like Squirrels, ran –
The Hills untied their Bonnets –
The Bobolinks – begun –
Then I said softly to myself –
‘That must have been the Sun!'"

I’ll tell you how the Sun rose
Emily Dickinson.

-Sam