My legal name is Adam John-Gabriel Rousseau. You may know me as Gabe, however, the court, my drivers license, social security card, and every substitute teacher I ever had, knows me as Adam. Something you may not have known, is that there are between ten quadrillion vigintillion and one-hundred thousand quadrillion vigintillion atoms in the observable universe. Out of all of the Adam’s in the world, I make up only one of them. However when it comes to all of the atoms in the universe, I make up about seven octillion of them. And you, the reader, are made of nearly just as much matter as I am.
By no means am I qualified to discuss quantum physics. I didn’t pay much attention in science class throughout the years. However, I have always loved space. Not because of the science of it all, or the absurd facts that people have discovered about it. Did you know that an astronaut’s footprint on the moon can last up to one million years? How would scientists even know that? They haven’t been around for a million years to prove it. Also, the first person didn’t step onto the surface of the moon until 1969. That man was Neil Amrstrong by the way, if you didn’t pay attention in elementary school history class. Regardless, we have another 999,947 years before we can verify if that is true.
Somewhere, 13.8 billion years ago, there was nothing except a singular, unbelievably hot and dense point that existed in a place that can be best described as nowhere. That point eventually exploded, expanded, and cooled into what is now our universe. Matter, electrons, protons, stars, galaxies, the solar system, and everything else followed. Then 4.5 billion years ago, gravity pulled together swirling gas and dust and created the Earth. If you were curious, the average person could have existed through 62,500,000 lifetimes since the Earth’s formation.
Putting all of these numbers in perspective is overwhelming. Through every lifetime, every person that has ever existed, every star or planet that has formed, it all happened because of a minuscule ball of matter. And whether you believe it, or not, that ball of matter has led you to be exactly where you are, in this moment.
So, with the billions of years that came before us, and the billions that will follow after we go, all of us will eventually be reduced to a speck in the timeline of the universe’s existence. Due to this fact, it is easy to believe that nothing we do in this lifetime will matter. I can’t debate that, because there is truth to it. I also argue that what we do is everything. And everything that ever happens for the rest of forever, is because of me and you.
A poem by Chinese Writer Lu Yu explains this idea much better than I can.

The clouds above us join and separate,
The breeze in the courtyard leaves and returns,
Life is like that, so why not relax?
Who can stop us from celebrating?

For every answer there is always another question. For every “important” life lesson learned, one is forgotten. For every sunrise, there is always a sunset, and so on. The years will pass by, things will change, and people will come and go. Our lives are ever changing. However some things will always stay the same. Those things are what make us, us. I would like to share some of the things that make up my existence, with you.
I feel most alive when I go on a long bike ride on a summer night, allowing the breeze to cool my skin and flow through my hair. I feel most alive when I feel the weight of a barbell in my hands or on my back. I feel most alive when I laugh with the ones I love. I feel most alive when I strum my guitar, when I allow my fingers to dictate the tune. I feel most alive when I hear the roar of a crowd as a football is snapped. I feel most alive when I watch my younger brother, Quinn, give his heart and soul into any play or musical he is in. I feel most alive when I watch my younger brother, Griffin, grow and grow, in height and into someone I know will do amazing things. I feel most alive when I hug my mom and my dad, the people that, all of the science stuff aside, are what I am made of. I feel most alive when I look at the night sky and see the moon and the constellations, waiting there for me. The thing that I love about space, is that no matter how much time goes by, every night it will be there for me to admire again and again.
To try and understand how and why we got here or what the purpose of everything is, is an impossible task to give yourself. Though while we are here, alive and together, there is so much about the world to love.
Thank you to the Norse Star for providing me with an outlet to do something I love. I wish to keep writing in my future, in some regard.
To those I have met, laughed with, conversed with, even if we didn’t have the greatest of interactions, I wish you the best. Be good to one another.
With that, I leave you with a quote from the late Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”