Stardust
There are no new ingredients in the universe, and humans – however they may look – are made of roughly the same things we are.
Matt Haig • The Humans
It's easy to think of ourselves as separated from everything, but this is not true. We are as much the universe as a neutron star or a black hole or a nebula. Even better, actually, we are its thinking and feeling part: the centre organs of the universe.
Kurzgesagt • Optimistic Nihilism
It never ceases to stagger that some stroke of chance in the early history of the universe set into motion the Rube Goldberg machine of events that turned atoms born in the first stars into you — into this temporary clump of borrowed stardust that, for the brief interlude between not having existed and no longer existing, gets to have ideas and ice... See more
As physicist Paul Davies writes in The Goldilocks Enigma (Allen Lane, 2006): Somehow the universe has engineered, not just its own awareness, but also its own comprehension. Mindless, blundering atoms have conspired to make not just life, but understanding. The evolving cosmos has spawned beings who are able not merely to watch the show, but to
... See moreAlexander Green • Beyond Wealth
oceans, and mountains swirl and rise and sink. This rabbinic midrash reflects the same reality that science does: we are all, literally, composed of the entire earth, indeed, of stardust from supernovae millions of light-years away. The components of our bones, the cells of our blood, the air that we breathe—all that was used by others before us,
... See moreRabbi Bradley Shavit DHL Artson • God of Becoming and Relationship: The Dynamic Nature of Process Theology
When stars explode at death, all the matter that built up in their outer shells gets blown out into interstellar space. Carbon, oxygen, silicon, gold, and silver were all floating around as clouds of elements in space, then gravity pulled them together to form the planets. This is how the planet Earth formed with its ninety-two natural elements,
... See moreMichael A. Singer • Living Untethered: Beyond the Human Predicament
The Universe has a history only because we are here to tell it.
Marcelo Gleiser • The Dawn of a Mindful Universe: A Manifesto for Humanity's Future
“We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out—and we have only just begun.”