I’m still recovering from attending Deepak Chopra’s Sages & Scientists symposium in Beverly Hills last weekend.
People keep asking me how it was, and I say, it was fascinating, yet on the inside I’m still piecing it together.
Over some 20 hours we covered the gamut of science of the cosmos and quantum, to topics of consciousness.
From as big as this infinite ever-expanding universe that is made mostly of invisible matter.
To as small as the fact that you and me each can observe this universe, and ourselves.
And, even smaller: the way that our behaviors and lifestyle affect us at a genetic level.
Reflecting on these topics big and small reminds me of a passage one of my buddies loves from Carl Sagan:
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
At different scales life looks different, yet we always bring the perspective.
As my buddy says, you can read the Sagan quote and think, well, my life doesn’t really matter.
Or, see, because we’re so lucky to be here, it matters even more that you fully live your life.
All interesting ideas still kicking around after my mind blowing with Deepak.