The only thing that matters to our existence is the present. Are we're lucky to even be here.

Here's the way I see it. Suppose a man lived 1,000 years ago. He lived a good life and then he died. But after the passing of 1,000 years there's no trace of his existence. There's no letter that remains that he wrote, no story passed down by his descendants about his life, no photographs, no journal, no record of his life at all. Nothing. There may have been some records of his existence, but after a thousand years they've all been destroyed. It's as if this man never existed at all.

In 10,000 years that will be all of us.

Even with the advancement of technology and digital record keeping, in 10,000 years nobody will ever know that we existed. In the year 12007 there will not be a single person that will know that any of us who are reading these words right now, ever lived.

You might think that surely there will be some kind of digital records around somewhere that proove that we were here. But even with the slight possibility that a few records of a couple of our lives survive 1,000 years of wars, terrorism, disasters, and indifference, after 10,000 years those records will be long gone. Even a name on a moss covered tombstone will be nearly impossible to find.

Look at it this way. In the 20th century somewhere around 200 ( more or less ) hurricanes struck the east coast of the United States. At that rate in 10,000 years, 20,000 hurricanes will have struck the east coast of the United States. Then do the math with earthquakes, floods, fires, wars, and terrorism. The biggest destroyer of our existence however, will be indifference. If nobody cares, records will simply disappear.

Even with the outside chance that somebody reading these words becomes so famous that some kind of record of their life survives 10,000 years, nobody in the year 12007 will care. Nobody in 10,000 years is going to give a damn about anybody that lived in 2007. It will be as if none of us ever existed.

The same goes for everything you see around you right now. Your computer screen. Your desk. The furniture in the room. The trees outside your window. The houses and buildings on your street. Everything.

Time erases everything, including our own exsitence. No matter what we do now, time will erase it. We're born, we live, we die. Nobody in the future will know or care. And the universe isn't going to give a damn.

The present. That's all that matters. And we're damn lucky to be here.

Richard Dawkins puts it this way:

"We are lucky to be alive. We're lucky to be alive because it would have been so easy for our ancestors not to have been here. It would have been so astronomically probable that somebody else would have been here rather than us.

And we're lucky to be alive for another reason. Think about it this way. The universe is about fourteen-thousand million years old. That's a hundred and forty-million centuries. Some sixty million centuries from now the sun will become a red giant and engulf the earth. So there are about two-hundred million centuries from the origin of the universe to the end of the earth.

Now, of the 140 million centuries since time began, every one of them was once the present century. And of the 60 million centuries until the end of the world, every one of them will be the present century.

The present century is a tiny spotlight inching its way along a gigantic ruler of time. Everything before the spotlight is in the darkness of the unknown future. Everything after the spotlight is in the darkness of the dead past. We live in the spotlight. Of all the 200 million centuries along the ruler of time - 199,999,999 centuries are in darkness. Only one is in the spotlight and that is the one in which we happen, by sheer luck, to be alive."

- Richard Dawkins Growing Up in the Universe DVD 2007

The spotlight is constantly moving forward. Time keeps on slipping into the future.

To demonstrate, follow this topic post. It will be at the top of the list of this thread for a matter of hours. Over the next few days it will slowly move down the list as other topics are posted at the top. Within a week or two it will be knocked off the front page onto page two. By that time I,as well as other visitors on the fourm, will have lost interest in it. By late October it will be forgotten.

Within a year hundreds of other post on this forum will have taken it's place at the top of the list. In five years the post will be buried deep in the archives or deleted. At that time I will be 60 years old.

In ten years the entire website will probably be changed, moved, or deleted. Many present members will have long ago moved on to other interests.

In thirty years I will be 85. If I'm still alive I will probably be in an assisted living facility and have no memory of the post or the Rational Response Squad. The ones who started the group will be in their 50s. A few members will have died.

In fifty years the only thing left of me will be a headstone and maybe a box of photos and some home dvds. RRS will be history.

In 100 years everybody reading these words will be gone.

So the only point to our existence is in the present. And that point is to enjoy life now. Enjoying life now can mean helping to make the present world a better place, helping others to enjoy life more, relieving suffering, creating beauty, pursuing our goals, or doing the things that make our own personal lives enjoyable while we're alive. Enjoying life now means making each moment count. Savor the moments and make new memories.

Sometimes with stress or health problems or everyday turmoil that's easier said than done. But if you look for the beauty and fun in life, you'll usually find it.

Life is short. Enjoy the good stuff.

Dust in the Wind

I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment's gone.

All my dreams pass before my eyes a curiosity.

Dust in the wind. All they are is dust in the wind.

Same old song. Just a drop of water in an endless sea.

All we do crumbles to the ground, but we refuse to see.

Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.

Don't hang on. Nothing last forever but the earth and sky.

It slips away. All your money won't another minute buy.

Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.

Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.

Kansas - 1977