We do not call something beautiful simply because it lasts forever.
A sunset is breathtaking because it fades. Hikers endure the cold and darkness, trekking through the night, just to witness the sun rise from the peak of the mountain. Ice cream is delightful because it’s fleeting—you savor it in the moment, but eating it every day would be boring.
Life is precious precisely because it ends. Its finitude gives meaning to what we choose to value. Some dedicate their lives to work, others to family. But to dismiss the present in favor of what comes after death is shortsighted.
I cherish every memory, both good and bad. They shape who I am. I’m not perfect—no one is. To claim that any source of knowledge is absolute, infallible, and beyond question is arrogance. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I’d rather have unanswered questions than unquestionable answers.
There’s comfort in the unknown. So much remains unexplored, so much still uncertain. Maybe I can contribute. Maybe future generations will push the boundaries of human knowledge even further, and I’ll get to witness it happen.
Take AI, for example. Just a few years ago, people doubted that computers could understand speech, recognize objects in images, or surpass humans in chess and Go; yet now it seems it’s only a matter of time before we invent an artifical general intelligence (AGI) a type of AI where it could do any task better than a human could.
Thousands of years ago, humanity tamed fire, marking the beginning of our dominion over nature. From ancient, fossilized remains buried for eons, we extracted energy. Later, we split the atom and unleashed power greater still. Now, we stand at the precipice of another revolution.
Barring catastrophe, the next century will surpass the entire 20th century in progress. We will witness the first human colony on Mars, the extension of healthy lifespans, and the eradication of global poverty. With breakthroughs in nanotechnology, we may even glimpse the possibility of curing all diseases—or even achieving immortality.
All of this is possible thanks to thousands of scientists, inventors, and engineers worldwide. There has always been a group of people pushing the boundaries of human knowledge. Sometimes, they have even sacrificed their lives for it.
Marie Curie died of aplastic anemia, likely caused by prolonged exposure to radiation from her research.
Orville Wright suffered multiple injuries, including a broken leg, in a 1908 plane crash while testing a Wright Flyer prototype.
The crew of Apollo 1—Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee—tragically perished in a cabin fire during a pre-launch test.
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died when Soyuz 1’s parachute failed during reentry, causing the capsule to crash.
The ground you walked on is literally literred with blood. The air you breathe is filled with death. Thousands have died so that you can have a comfortable life. So that you have electricity, WiFi, running clean water, instant noodles, so that you can flip a switch and banish the darkness, press a button and have food show up at your door.
It was never free.
Somewhere, someone bled for it. A scientist in a dimly lit lab, working past exhaustion. A pilot pushing the limits of the sky. An astronaut, strapped into a metal coffin, trusting equations with their life.
We inherit their sacrifices as casually as we inhale oxygen, rarely stopping to acknowledge the cost. And yet, despite our indifference, the cycle continues. New minds rise to the challenge. New explorers, new pioneers, new dreamers.
Somewhere, right now, a researcher is staring at a whiteboard filled with equations, chasing a breakthrough that could change everything. A biologist is studying a virus, hoping to save millions. A physicist is warping spacetime in a supercomputer, reaching for the next frontier.
They do it not for wealth, not for glory, but because they are driven by something deeper—a compulsion, a need to understand, to build, to reach beyond the limits of today.
And one day, long after we’re gone, someone else will stand where we stand now. They’ll look back at us, at our struggles, our discoveries, our failures, and they will wonder:
Did we do enough?
Did we push hard enough?
Or did we let comfort dull our ambition? Or irrational beliefs about the world limits our research?
Because history does not wait. Progress does not pause. Either we move forward, or we become the past.
Is it not enough to watch the sun rise each morning? To gaze at the stars at night? To witness the moon shift through its phases, the tides ebb and flow, waterfalls crash into rivers, mountains stand unmoved by time? To know that we are made of atoms—woven from the same fabric as the universe itself?
Shouldn’t the wonders of nature be enough to fill us with awe?
What more do you want? Superstition? Myth?
Is it not enough to know that every single atom in your body was once fused in the heart of a star many billions of years ago? To know that you are the heir to an unfathomable cosmic legacy—that the very elements that make up your blood, your bones, your thoughts, were forged in the crucible of a dying sun? That before you were flesh, you were stardust, scattered across the void, only to be reborn as part of something conscious, something capable of love, of curiosity, of wonder?
Why must meaning be sought in the unseen, the unknowable, when it is already here, written into the very fabric of existence? There is poetry in the motion of galaxies, in the birth of a child, in the way water carves mountains over millennia. A flower does not need a reason to bloom; it simply does, and for that brief moment, it is beautiful.
And yet, despite all of this—despite knowing we are the living echoes of stars, that we walk upon a planet that defied the abyss and became a cradle for life—some still search for more. They crave permanence, certainty, the promise that this fleeting moment is not all there is. But why should eternity be the goal? Would a symphony be more beautiful if it never ended? Would a painting mean more if it could never fade?
Perhaps the point is not to seek permanence but to embrace impermanence. To live not for what comes after, but for what is here, now. To hold onto the transient joys, the ephemeral wonders, the brief sparks of connection that make existence feel infinite, even if only for a moment.
And if there is more beyond this life, if something awaits us in the unknown—then let that be a discovery, not an obsession. Let it be the next great adventure, not a reason to forsake this one.
Isn’t this enough? Wouldn’t all of this satisfy your desire for immortality? If this life is all we have, then let it be enough. Let the rising sun be enough. Let the laughter of loved ones, the warmth of a hand in yours, the hush of snowfall, the crash of waves—let them be enough. Let the knowledge that you are here, now, in this fleeting instant of cosmic time, be enough.
You were here. You saw, you felt, you wondered.
What greater miracle could there be than that?