Sterling Terrell

recovering economist

The Last Stars

The Last Stars

I am still pondering the time and space of this:

The last stars will die out 120 trillion years from now, followed by 10106 years of just black holes.

Condensed, that’s like the universe starting with 1 second of stars and then a billion billion billion billion billion billion years of just black holes.

Stars are basically the immediate after-effects of the Big Bang. A one-second sizzle of brightness before settling into eternal darkness.

OMgoodness, I am the emotional one in our family and this just makes my heart ache at the beauty of this life.

Feel like my kids are going to make fun of me for this post – ah well.

H/T:

Is The Second Half Of Life Just Reflection?

Is The Second Half Of Life Just Reflection?

Heck, I don’t know – maybe half of life is just reflection.

I mean – I hope not – it seems like a waste of time to me.

But I’m assuming there’s a good bit of looking back in the last 10 to 20 years…

You start out young and vibrant, you see.

You live and love and dream.

Life starts to happen.

And then, eventually, many of those desires begin to fade, and the memories of certain events along the way become stronger and stronger.

I remember seeing this is my grandparents. It seems like the older they got, the more they talked about the past, particularly friends and relatives who had died decades before.

I want to always be excited for the future.

But I get that what’s behind us is the stuff we’re made of.

Graham Greene once said that life was lived in the first twenty years and the remainder was just reflection.

-Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air (Amazon)

Sterling Terrell