#001 – If We’re the Only Ones in the Universe, then I’m a Monkey’s Uncle

“What the hell am I doing?” Today I had one of those moments. I had an audition, walked into the room, performed the scene and was out the door in under three minutes. Now…I spent three hours rehearsing that material, three hours driving to and from casting and at least three hours thinking about how nice it would be to actually book this thing. Three minutes! Sometimes I think my job is ridiculous. Anyway…I digress.

Welcome to the world of blogging! That’s actually for myself, since this is my first shot at this. Why am I doing this? An overwhelming desire to share knowledge. Knowledge that I have been slowly accumulating over decades of research and thought. And I’m a Pisces, so…there’s a lot of that.

What the hell am I doing?

Most of that thinking has been on the same question I had today, “What the hell am I doing?” What I mean by that is…what is this life all about, on this little ball we call Earth, out here on the edge of a galaxy among trillions of other galaxies? No joke. Most of us, at one time or another, have heard about the “Sand on the beach” analogy. It goes like this: There are as many grains of sand on all the beaches of our planet, as there are stars in our Universe. Think about that for a second. And that’s just the stars!

In 1995 an astronomer named Bob Williams took the Hubble telescope and pointed it at a region of space that was 1/30th the size of our moon that was seemingly “empty”. His colleagues thought he was nuts to waste valuable telescope time, but he did it anyway. And we’re glad he did because it turned out there were around 10,000 galaxies in the resulting images. Galaxies guys! Milky Ways! According to my own research there are around 250 billion stars in our galaxy alone. Throw in one or two habitable planets jogging around, let’s say, every 10,000 stars and the number of potentially intelligent civilizations out there is in the tens of millions. That’s just one galaxy folks!

We are not alone in the Universe

So, “What’s the point” you ask the first time blogger? The point, my friends, is that we are not alone. Never have been, and never will be. If you’re a 40 something year old man living out your seemingly uninteresting life with your only enjoyment trying to pick up some tail at your local wine bar…you are not alone. If you’re a middle aged woman that feels as though she’s past her prime and doomed for a solitary life of ice cream, cats and wine…you are not alone. Take the time each day to think about that. Contemplate the idea that you are existing on one grain of sand, on a beach teeming with life. Seemingly small, but part of a greater whole. Uniquely unimportant and incredibly precious at the same time. Part of something so great, so amazingly beautiful that it’s difficult to even realize from our current point of view.

This is a journey

I just wanted to get that off my chest. Because all the ideas and thoughts I want to share with you just won’t make any sense if you think the human species is all she wrote. Or maybe I can change your mind if your of the “we’re the only ones here” camp. Either way, this will be a journey for me too. One that we can take together in striking up a conversation of sorts. A path that leads to a greater awareness of who we are as a species in this place we call our Universe. My hope is that maybe we can go down this path together…figuring it out as we go along.

In Gratitude...Kerr