I am fascinated by the notion of that particular thing that divides H. sapiens from other ‘beings’ on this small planet, circling a modest Sun, in an unremarkable ‘solar system’, one of billions in the galaxy we call the ‘Milky Way’ which itself is only one of billions of galaxies spread throughout the cosmos within a ‘bubble-like’ area measuring some 93 billion light years across (the discernible Universe at this moment in space-time)… is related to our form of ‘consciousness’ Evidence is emerging that other animals may have at least some levels of consciousness that they were not previously acknowledged as having, but H. sapiens seem to be ‘blessed’ with particular extensions of their conscious abilities such as ‘ideation’ and ‘imagination’ that allow us to conceive of things in ways that other creatures probably cannot… The question is just how potent may these faculties be?… After all, we ourselves might only exist here on the dear planet Earth perhaps because we were originally just an idea that formed into an imagined possibility in the mind of Almighty God…
Forever Blowing Bubbles
Imagine we live in a bubble
Almost immeasurably wide
Our planet, by comparison, would be
Like a germ on a microscope slide
And around the bubble are others
Nestling like foam on the bath
Of a giant so incalculably huge
You could never do the math
Or perhaps we exist in a ‘pocket’
One of many, some scientists say,
Our galaxy? No more than
A small wisp of fluff
God had never cleared away
When he hung his coat in a closet
In the hall of a mansion so grand
With rooms too many for man to count
That He built in a heavenly land
Otherwise, Earth may be an electron
In an atom of some massive domain
Whizzing around our nuclear star
In a dimension too hard to explain
Our Universe, part of a molecule,
In material so whacky and weird
That the concept of our existence
Is more complex than ever we’ve feared
If so, it may seem we don’t matter
If we’re actually quite incredibly small
And if we are so insignificant
How could we affect things at all?
But what if our unthinking choices
Might impact the immensely large whole
And each bad decision we make
Could damage our eternal Soul
(For our body is born to grow and thrive
Then age and wither away
But, our Soul is the only thing
That lasts forever-and-a-day)
And if we take things too lightly
Or imagine we aren’t worthwhile
And live our lives unthinkingly
In an ill-considered style
Never conscious that forever
Is a thing that is in our hands
We might be causing chaos
To descend on faraway lands
For, just think, if we live in that bubble
So frail, and fragile and thin
That the slightest breeze
Might blow it away
Or cause it to burst on a whim
And though we be specks
Or some dust, or a thing
Infinitesimally small,
We may be like a butterfly’s wing
Whose flapping destroys it all…
So when we do those little acts
That seem bereft of consequence
Yet aren’t the right or seemly thing
(And for which we have no defence)
Perhaps we may start a ripple
That resounds through our universe
And starts a chain reaction
That results in so much worse
A bubble burst? A pocket ripped?
An ‘atom’ cleft in two…
Releasing so much energy
There’d be nothing we could do
To stop time from unravelling
Or space from ceasing to be
And everything collapsing back
To a sing-u-lar-it-y!
So no matter how big we really are
Or how small we may actually be
Everything we think, feel or do
May affect Life’s legendary Tree
The positive things nourish branches
To form leaves, blossoms and fruits
The negative things we engage in
Could cause rot to set in at the roots
We must learn to live life thoughtfully
And consider each action we take
To ensure our ‘perceived reality’
Is the best we can possibly make
But more than this, to preserve
Places yet to be conceived,
For they can’t exist till imagined
Only then can they be believed
For if the multiverse is infinite,
(Which appears to be the case)
Then imagination is all it takes
To ‘create’ a thing or place
For we are all ‘ideational gods’
Creating things without a care
For the moment they are imagined
They are sure to exist somewhere.
And if we think erratically
Or act without conscious concern
Our thoughts may be bursting bubbles
Our deeds causing whole worlds to burn
Al G Smith & algsmith.com © 2022