This Is Not About You

Go and look at the waves
See how they crash on the shore
Again and again and again
No newspaper reports them
You saw them with your own eyes
No billionaire chose for you to see them
You went of your own accord
No authority gave you permission
You did that yourself
But this isn't about you
It's about the waves
And how they do what they do
Without the slightest human intervention
And it's about more than the waves
It's about the dripping in limestone caves
It's about the creatures in the Mariana Trench
It's about the formation of rain drops at two and a half thousand feet
And how none of them depend on humans
They do not require photographers in order to exist
No commissioning editor controls their existence
They just are
And they just do
Whether you know it or not
And that's not just true on Earth
But in the great red spot on Jupiter
And the soft gyres of the atmosphere of Neptune
And in the nuclear fusion of the sun
And in the elliptical path of comets
And in the swallowed light of black holes
And in the slow but inexorable expansion of the universe
None of it is about humans
None of it is about you
None of it cares about you or has the capacity to do so
It has been happening
It is happening
And it will go on happening
Whether you know it or not
Whether it's in a big book of high resolution photographs or not
Whether any scientist anywhere has observed it or ever will
And this is true of almost the entire universe
Ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine percent of it
Everything except for the tiny lantern of cognition here on Earth
A theatre in which every audience member also sits upon the stage
Almost everything that has happened, is happening and will happen
Does so wholly one hundred percent regardless of humans or whatever they happen to think
And the crashing waves on the beach
Are just the beginning of a thread
That begins here
And wraps all the way around the universe
And you can go
And look at them
And remember
This is not about you
None of this is about you