The Vastness

 "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love" - Carl Sagan

One early dawn, I found myself standing in front of Lake Louise in Banff National Park. Bluest of the blue waters I had ever seen stood dark, with moonlight dancing on its surface. The peaks shook me. Words fail me when I try to describe what I really feel standing in places like this, especially in darkness. A pull that causes the me to be afraid of myself. I might just walk in. 

Dr Sagan in talking about the cosmic vastness, I wonder, felt it too, maybe? Or it might just be a bug of my own faulty brain. Kundera defined vertigo as our own desire of jumping from the height causing the fear and not the height itself. My fear is also alike. I have felt it driving through the mountains of South India, that morning on Lake Louise, and even in the Smokes. It is awe, respect, and also amazement at what all they have seen over centuries and millennia. A true reflection of my own insignificance in the grand scheme of things. An hour spent marveling at its beauty is not even a blip in its lifetime. As tourists, we visit these places, and maybe pickup a souvenir. But some places, such as Lake Louise, take a piece of you and there is no replacing it.

While Dr Sagan recommends love to face this fear and awe of the vastness, I am rather inexperienced on that front. I don't think I felt true love yet, at least not the kind that could stand with me on such lakeshores and hold my hand in anticipation of my feelings. I am not sure anymore if such love even exists. 

If you know of such love, dear reader, I suggest you hold onto it. Don't let it go for it must the rarest of feelings in the whole cosmos.